Capito displeased with EPA’s new air quality standard

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently released National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ground-level ozone will do more harm than good in her home state. 

The standards call for lowering ground-level ozone from 75 parts-per-billion (ppb) to 70 ppb.

“The new ozone standard … will jeopardize our ability to create new manufacturing jobs at a time when West Virginia’s growing natural gas reserves should mean more factories and plants are coming online,” Capito said. “EPA continues to hold America back with its onerous regulations and deeply flawed permitting process for new and expanding manufacturing facilities. If the administration is serious about growing manufacturing jobs, EPA should promptly provide guidance to businesses seeking permits to construct and expand manufacturing facilities.”

The recent change was the first such alteration in the standard since 2008, when the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ground-level ozone was lowered from 84 ppb to 75 ppb. The EPA reconsidered the standard between 2010 and 2011, but opted not to change it in light of “regulatory costs and burdens,” Capito’s office said. 

Capito pointed out that states are only now starting to implement ozone reductions under the 2008 standard.

Other lawmakers agreed that imposing significant additional reductions, simultaneous with the EPA-delayed implementation of the 2008 standard, is unfair and counterproductive.

“The air we breathe is clean and already getting cleaner,” U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), a senior member of the Energy & Commerce Committee, recently said. “Ozone levels have been on the decline for decades, even as many areas of the country still strive to meet the current NAAQS EPA set in 2008. The EPA claims their new standards are meant to limit air pollution, but the only thing they’ll limit are manufacturing jobs and economic growth.”