Businesses blast EPA smog rule as costly, unnecessary

Business groups lambasted the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ozone proposal to reduce smog Wednesday.

The rule, which seeks to cut the allowable amount of ground ozone in ambient air, is an expensive proposition that wouldn’t protect public health any more than the existing standard, the groups charged.

{mosads}Fossil fuel producers and energy-intensive industries could stand to lose if a tighter standard is put into place, because ozone is a byproduct of pollutants from fossil fuels.

“This new ozone regulation threatens to be the most expensive ever imposed on industry in America and could jeopardize recent progress in manufacturing by placing massive new costs on manufacturers and closing off counties and states to new business by blocking projects at the permitting stage,” Jay Timmons, chief executive officer of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement.

Timmons said the new standards come at a time that manufacturers are making a comeback from the recession while dealing with a variety of new regulations. The ozone rule could threaten the comeback, he said.

The EPA proposed tightening the allowable ozone concentration to between 65 parts per billion and 70 parts per billion, from the current 75 parts per billion. It would spur states to take measures to reduce production of ozone.

The manufacturers’ group commissioned a study earlier this year that found that a 60-parts-per-billion standard would cost the country $270 billion a year and millions of lost jobs, and would be the most expensive regulation in history.

That study did not analyze any other proposed ozone limits, such as the one the EPA is seeking.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) complained that any restrictions lower than 75 parts per billion, a standard set in 2008 by the George W. Bush administration, have not been shown to further protect public health.

“Careful review of the science shows that the current standards already protect public health,” API chief Jack Gerard said in a statement. “Tightening these standards could be the most expensive regulation ever imposed on the American public, with potentially enormous costs to the economy, jobs, and consumers.”

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers President Charles Drevna called the proposal “just the latest in the Obama administration’s arsenal of restrictive rules that will undermine the U.S. economy in the president’s pursuit of his desired green legacy.”

It said the rule could cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year and millions of lost jobs with little to no environmental or health benefit.