I hate to wish the summer away, but the November presidential elections can’t come fast enough for me.

The recent lowering of the smog standard sounded good initially (see my recent article.) The EPA lowered ground level ozone (smog) standards from 80 ppb to 75 ppb. 4000 lives per year would be saved, and asthma sufferers would reduce there medical costs.

But the Clean Air EPA advisory board formally lashed out at the EPA this week, reprimanding them for ignoring their advice to reduce ground level ozone (smog) standards from 80 parts per billion(ppb) to 50-60 ppb.

Initially, the EPA was to implement their recommendation. But hours before the news release March 12th, President Bush personally intervened.

“Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of the law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief’s expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt,” said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private advocacy group. “It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference.”

In a follow-up letter dated April 7th, sent by the advisory panel to the EPA, and obtained by the Associated Press(AP), the AP reported that “the committee said it remained convinced that the EPA’s concentration level “fails to … ensure an adequate margin of safety” for the elderly, children and people with respiratory illnesses.”

The letter “also criticized the EPA for not further strengthening a separate smog standard aimed at protecting forests, agricultural lands and the ecosystem, saying such action was “scientifically well justified.”

Appointed by Congress, the committee is an independent special ozone review panel of 25 scientists. They “unanimously agreed they should “not endorse the new primary ozone standard as being sufficiently protective of public health.”

They further stated that “We sincerely hope that in light of these scientific judgments and the supporting scientific evidence, you or your successor [EPA administrator Stephen Johnson] will select a more health-protective … standard during the upcoming review cycle,” the committee wrote.

Reviews are done every five years. Government lobbyists feel that no reduction is needed.

This is not the first time the Bush administration has interfered with environmental policy. According to NPR’s, Elizabeth Shogren, for the last six years there have been a series of environmental changes by Bush so controversial that both Republicans and Democrats oppose them. You can see a history of Bush’s environmental decisions at this link

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