Oil industry to EPA: Don’t move goalposts with ozone rule

The main lobbying group for the oil industry is arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should let the country catch up to the last ozone standards before setting new ones.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) told reporters Tuesday that significant parts of the country still haven’t met the 2008 standard set by the Bush administration.

{mosads}Now, the EPA is considering whether to restrict the standards even more. It is under a court order to propose whether to set a new standard by Monday.

“It’s very ironical … that we haven’t even started implementing, as a society, the 2008 standards,” Howard Feldman, API’s director of regulatory affairs, said Tuesday.

“Now is not the time to move the goalposts and start trying to change the standard to an even tighter standard. We should first work on meeting the current, existing standards, before changing the standards,” he said. “That makes good public policy.”

States have only begun to implement the 2008 standard, and some still haven’t complied with the 1997 rule, Feldman said.

Under the 2008 rule, areas that have more than 75 parts per billion of ozone in the air must submit plans to the EPA to lower the concentration.

Ozone is a byproduct of some pollutants from burning fossil fuels, so states often have to put new restrictions on energy-intensive industries like oil refining, manufacturers that use fossil fuels or fuel sold to consumers.

The EPA’s scientific advisers and staff recommended earlier this year that it reduce the acceptable ozone levels between 60 parts per billion and 70 parts per billion. Ozone has been shown to cause respiratory and circulatory problems.

“We would let states finish implementing the current standards,” Feldman said. “We should do that as a society before we start proposing new ones.”

Feldman also argued that any lower standard would hurt the economy and jobs.

A study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers this year found that a 60-parts-per-billion rule would cost the country $270 billion a year, the most expensive regulation ever.

“Tightened standards would impose unachievable emission reduction requirements on virtually every part of the nation, including rural and undeveloped areas,” he said.

The EPA is obligated to consider only public health, and not costs, when setting the new standard. That has angered industry and Republicans, who want to avoid a costly rule.

But Feldman said business can win on health arguments as well.

“We think that there is significant uncertainty in the health information right now,” he said. “Current standards are protective of public health.”

The EPA, meanwhile, has dismissed cost estimates, saying they are based on a rule that hasn’t even been publicly revealed.

API is urging the EPA to formally consider keeping the 75 parts per billion level in its proposed rule, which is currently under review at the White House Office of Management and Budget.