EPA Proposes New Ozone Standard
Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. - Texas Environmental Update, June 2007
On June 21, 2007, EPA announced its proposal to revise the existing 8-hour National Ambient Air Quality Standard (“NAAQS”) for ozone. EPA announced these recommended changes pursuant to a consent decree that requires EPA to propose a revised ozone standard by June 20, 2007. Rather than proposing specific NAAQS levels for the primary ozone standard (designed to protect human health) and the secondary ozone standard (designed to protect public welfare, including vegetation and crops), EPA issued recommended ranges and options regarding which EPA requests public comment.
EPA proposes to lower the primary ozone NAAQS from its current level of 0.08 parts per million (“ppm”) to between 0.070 and 0.075 ppm. This range is not as stringent as the 0.060 to 0.070 ppm range that the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee has recommended. EPA will solicit comment on the range of primary standard levels from 0.060 ppm up to the current 8-hour standard of 0.08 ppm. EPA has also proposed and will invite comment on two alternatives for revising the secondary ozone NAAQS. One option is to replace the current 8-hour standard with a cumulative, seasonal standard expressed as an index of the annual sum of weighted hourly concentrations, cumulated over 12 hours per day during three months of the ozone season (June, July and August) with the maximum index value set at a level within the range of 7 to 21 ppm-hours. The other proposed option is to continue to set the secondary standard at a level identical to the primary standard.
EPA will accept comment on the proposed revisions for 90 days following publication of the proposal in the Federal Register. Hearings regarding the proposal will be held Los Angeles and Philadelphia on August 30, 2007, and in Chicago and Houston on September 5, 2007. Pursuant to the above-referenced consent decree, EPA must issue final revised standards by March 12, 2008.
The draft rule and other information regarding EPA’s proposal are available on EPA’s website.1
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