The News & Observer of Raleigh reports today about improved ozone levels in North Carolina and regulators’ contention that millions still breathe unhealthy air:
New, tighter federal standards for ozone — the primary ingredient in smog — mean that the Triangle, Charlotte and the state’s other metropolitan areas likely will return to the federal dirty air list next year.
State air quality regulators on Monday previewed a plan to recommend in March that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency include the Triangle, Charlotte, the Triad, Fayetteville, Hickory, Asheville, Rocky Mount and Greenville metropolitan areas as well as Great Smoky Mountains National Park and several other high elevation areas.
“Air quality in North Carolina definitively is getting better over time,” said George Bridgers, chief air quality meteorologist with the Division of Air Quality. “But the federal standard is getting tighter.”
Regulators with the EPA, who are required by law to review standards for air pollutants every five years, tightened the standards for ground-level ozone to protect public health.
In May, Joel Schwartz, an environmental consultant and visiting fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, had this to say about the EPA’s tightened ozone restrictions:
The EPA is creating the appearance of risk at ozone levels that aren?t harmful. That?s how they maintain their power. The agency keeps people scared and becomes the savior from all these nonexistent harms … The EPA?s mission is to find harms and then save people from them. That?s why they exist.
