Oct. 02--Polluting industries will be required to do more to curb lung-damaging smog under new restrictions announced Thursday by the Obama administration, but most of the nation is projected to clean up within a decade.
Chicago and most of the Midwest are on track to comply even quicker, largely because of a long, contentious effort to curb noxious air pollution from cars, factories and power plants.
The more stringent limit imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is grounded in a growing body of scientific research that suggests smog can trigger health problems and lead to early deaths at levels considerably lower than previously thought.
"These standards are achievable," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who was involved in a 2011 effort to set a significantly tougher limit that was rejected by the White House. "Science tells us that (smog) is still making people sick and we still have work to do."
But lowering the acceptable threshold -- to 70 parts per billion from 75 ppb -- ended up disappointing virtually everybody involved in the debate.
Groups representing physicians and pediatricians had called for the strictest possible standard while business interests waged an aggressive campaign to persuade the Obama administration to keep it at 75. The EPA's scientific advisers had recommended a limit of 60 to 70 ppb.
Smog, also known as ground-level ozone, is formed by a reaction between sunlight and pollutants from car tailpipes, power plants and factories, fumes from volatile solvents and gasoline vapors. Breathing even low levels can inflame the lining of the lungs and aggravate asthma and other respiratory diseases; long-term exposure can permanently scar lung tissue.
To help reduce the pollution, Cook County, the collar counties and areas across the Mississippi River from St. Louis have for years been required to enforce local initiatives such as tailpipe emissions checks and vapor controls on gasoline pumps.
Monitoring data from 2012 to 2014 show that McLean County in downstate Illinois is the only part of the state that would be added to the list of areas required to take more aggressive steps to reduce smog-forming pollution.
The official list of counties in "nonattainment" -- EPA-speak for having too much dirty air -- likely won't be set until 2017. By then, agency projections show, all of the monitored areas of Illinois should meet the new standard, with the biggest improvements coming from national regulations already on the books or in the works that require cleaner cars, trucks and power plants.
Outside of California, nearly all of the U.S. should be in compliance by 2025, according to the EPA's projections.
A surge of abundant, low-cost natural gas and growing reliance on renewable energy is helping clean the air by pushing utilities to shut down or overhaul some of the nation's oldest, dirtiest coal-fired power plants.
Weather also will help dictate how much more states are required to do, said Rob Kaleel, executive director of the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium, a group of state officials from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Cooler summers generally mean less smog.
Health and environmental groups welcomed the tougher standard but said the Obama administration should have done more to protect children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. The EPA's scientific advisers had cautioned that exposure to smog at the EPA's new limit could "result in significant adverse effects," including impaired lung development and respiratory disease.
"President Obama has missed a major opportunity," said John Walke, an attorney for the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
Business groups, meanwhile, generally appeared to be pleased they dodged what one called a "worst-case scenario." But opponents still said the rule still was too tough.
"The new ozone standard will inflict pain on companies that build things in America, and destroy job opportunities for American workers," said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
In 2001, after business lobbyists waged a campaign that at the time was one of the most expensive in history, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the EPA's authority to base air-quality standards on public health, without considering economic concerns.
The high court's decision allowed the government to enforce a smog standard of 84 ppb set by the Clinton administration in 1997. Only a handful of counties still exceed that level; most of them are in California.
Like every other time the smog standard has been tightened, communities will get several years to meet the new limit. Any that fail to meet the EPA's deadlines face fines, a loss of federal highway money and restrictions on environmental permits for polluters.
mhawthorne@tribpub.com
