The Toledo Blade
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Editorial: Bad air day

July 1, 2000

Just hours after a national environmental group released a critical report damning air quality standards in over half the country, the Republican-led Congress quietly voted to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from even identifying the communities most at risk. It is the latest convoluted move by politicians and business constituents to hamstring the EPA from doing its job.

The corporate polluters in stubborn noncompliance with the ever-stricter EPA smog standards are proving quite effective at keeping the agency at bay. They've managed to stall the ability of the EPA to enforce tighter ozone limits on state polluters by going to court to challenge the agency's authority to impose such rules.

Now House Republicans - including Paul Gillmor of Old Fort and Michael Oxley of Findlay - have won support for a measure that would deny the public's right to know if the air they breathe is unhealthy. The bill, like the pending EPA case before the Supreme Court, puts on hold the agency's initiative to improve air quality damaged by vehicle and factory emissions, but goes further.

The GOP majority is stepping up its assault on the environmental agency to even include forbidding the EPA from using its data to say which communities are failing to meet clean air standards. They would deep-six data, for example, like the just-released report by the Clean Air Network that said all of Ohio's cities are in violation of the new, stricter ozone limits.

The network, which is an alliance of over 1,000 local, state, and national organizations, including the American Lung Association, analyzed U.S. EPA quality air data collected nationwide between 1997 and 1999. It showed, among other things, that 30 of Ohio's 33 counties with air monitors did not meet the new ozone limits set by the EPA.

The agency wants to use the data to target areas in critical need of air pollution reduction. But if House Republicans prevail in their campaign against the agency, not only will it be prohibited from aggressively enforcing new anti-pollution regulations but from even using its information to identify areas with dangerously high levels of smog.

Which is music to the ears of Ohio's coal-burning power plants - a major source of smog. They and powerful business coalitions have long argued that more stringent steps to clean the air are not cost-effective and therefore not prudent public policy.

And businesses that contribute to campaigns carry extra weight during an election year so it's no surprise that 58 House Democrats - not including Toledo's Marcy Kaptur - crossed over the aisle to blindside the EPA by limiting its ability to identify the nature and scope of problem areas.

Perhaps, as one lawmaker lamented, dirty air will no longer exist if it isn't officially recognized. The reasoning behind the House vote is not only absurd but seriously threatens the public welfare. Is the next step to keep communities in the dark about ozone alerts, lest one area with harmful smog levels be identified as a particular health risk to children, the elderly, and people with asthma or other respiratory diseases?

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