The point of continuously tightening ozone standards has nothing to do with health and has everything to do with creating a standard that is impossible to comply with. That is, to create a standard that is indistinguishable from natural background levels.
A few years ago I was at a meeting of the Carolina Air Pollution Control Association (CAPCA). A representative from the EPA spoke about the current standard, which was, at the time, being considered. The EPA rep was asked why the new standard was being promulgated when the then-existing standard was just starting to be met by most states and the results of a new standard in terms of health were insignificant. Her response was astonishing. She told the questioner that the EPA did not want the states and communities to get too comfortable, essentially admitting that the EPA had no intention of creating a truly workable standard.
It also needs to be realized that this is the same EPA that is very anxious to regulate CO2, which is generated, for the most part, by burning the same fossil fuels that emit the precursors to ozone. Raising the ozone standard raises the cost of using these fuels in the same way that a CO2 tax or a cap and trade program would. It is a back door way of raising the costs of using fossil fuels and therefore subsidizing the use of so called renewable energy like wind and solar, which cannot survive without massive subsidization.
