The Smog of War

Photo by urbanfeel, via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/30003006@N00/530910048/">Flickr</a>.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The climate bill may be dead, but that doesn’t mean opponents of clean air rules are resting on their laurels. A bipartisan group of senators is lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to put the brakes on new rules that would protect the public from harmful ozone pollution, better known as smog.

In January, the EPA proposed tough new rules on ozone, tightening the controversial Bush-era standards that left the public exposed to hazardous levels of pollution. The final rule was expected out by the end of this month, though it doesn’t appear to be ready yet; it has not yet been sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which reviews rules before they can be finalized, according to reports.

But a group of seven senators, lead by Ohio Republican George Voinovich and Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh, is pressuring EPA administrator Lisa Jackson to hold off. The Bush administration issued their standards less than two years ago, the senators argue, and such rules are typically updated only every five years. (The senators fail to mention in their letter to the EPA, however, that the Bush-era rules were set far weaker than the EPA’s own experts recommended.)

“We believe that changing the rules at this time will have a significant negative impact on our states’ workers and families and will compound the hardship that many are now facing in these difficult economic times,” they wrote.

Democrats Mary Landrieu (La.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.), and Republicans Richard Lugar (Ind.), Kit Bond (Mo.) and David Vitter (La.) also signed onto the letter to EPA.

Complying with the current standards has been “costly” for businesses and has “greatly restricted the ability of local communities to grow their economies,” they continue. “This is unacceptable.”

But tougher standards are a critical public health issue. The American Lung Association estimates that up to 186 million people in the United States are breathing unhealthy levels of smog due to the weak rules currently in place. “People are literally getting sick and dying from high ozone levels,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. “But these soon-to-be-retired senators just want to play politics.” (Both Bayh and Voinovich are retiring this year.)

This isn’t a huge surprise; big emitters were already trying to use the climate bill as a vehicle to undermine other clean air standards. Major energy companies like Duke and American Electric Power have asked the EPA to drop the new standards in comments on the proposed rules.

Meanwhile, the EPA hasn’t actually issued the final rule. O’Donnell said it is “very troubling” that the agency does not appear on track to finalize the rule this month as previously indicated.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate