Opinion: Business Responds to EPA Announcement

After much debate and anticipation, EPA yesterday released its decision on a new ambient air quality standard for ozone. In choosing a new standard of 70 parts per billion, the least restrictive of the options available under its proposal, the agency would appear to have made no one happy.

“Businesses are appropriately concerned about the enormous costs the new rule will impose while some environmental groups feel the agency did not go far enough in further reducing ozone standards,” said Stephen Minick, Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the Texas Association of Business.  “The fact is that EPA has never established a technically valid basis for a more stringent standard. The representation that a more stringent standard will somehow decrease the incidence of asthma is simply untrue. The common knowledge that EPA and its supporters continue to ignore is that over the many years that businesses, industry and consumers have been working to improve air quality, the rate of incidence of asthma has progressively increased – year after year.”

The new standard, although less stringent than it could have been, will still significantly impact the costs of businesses and reduce economic productivity while producing no measurable public health benefit. “The job creators, the families struggling to make ends meet and especially the parents of asthmatic children deserve a better answer,” said Minick.

Submitted by, Texas Association of Business