The rule would have changed the maximum ground level ozone (ozone is bad here where we breath it, but good in the upper atmosphere where it blocks UV light) from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 60 to 70 ppb. This doesn't strike me as an enormous, or even particularly meaningful change (ozone concentrations fluctuate quite rapidly in response to sources and light), but EPA estimated that the cost of the new regulations to industry could be as much as $90 billion by 2020. They also promised health benefits to exceed that. Justifying either number would be amusing to behold.
President Barack Obama, citing the struggling economy, asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday to withdraw an air-quality rule that Republicans and business groups said would cost millions of jobs.
The surprise move—coming on the same day as a dismal unemployment report—reflected the energy industry's importance as a rare bright spot in adding U.S. jobs. The tighter standards for smog-forming ozone could have forced states and cities to limit some oil-and-gas projects.
In making the move, the White House clearly judged that it had more to lose from industry and Republican criticism than it had to gain from environmental groups who support the rule.
The EPA's January 2010 proposal, to tighten air-quality standards to a level below that adopted under President George W. Bush and even further below what most states now adhere to, has been cited for months by industry groups and lawmakers as "regulatory overreach" that they say is undercutting the economic recovery. Republican presidential candidates have routinely criticized the EPA in stump speeches...
It's interesting to see that Obama is now "triangulating" against his own supporters on environmental matters.
In possibly related news, the economy failed to generate any net new jobs in August, the first such occurrence since WWII.
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