Tough, expensive new limits on smog

The sky will not fall if the Environmental Protection Agency forces Hampton Roads and other U.S. communities to meet stricter limits on smog. Instead, the sky will be clearer - as will the lungs of millions of Americans who suffer from asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Two years ago, the Bush administration tightened national standards for ground-level ozone, or smog, generated by nitrogen oxide and other pollutants from automobiles, coal-fired power plants, refineries and factories. But the changes were weaker than recommended by EPA scientists, prompting the American Lung Association to file suit. Last year, the agency - under new leadership from the Obama administration - agreed to take a second look.

The review resulted in a proposal to limit ozone to somewhere between 60 parts per billion and 70 parts per billion during any eight-hour period. The range is what EPA scientists originally recommended. The Bush administration set the level instead at 75 parts per billion, largely in response to complaints from industry groups that stricter limits would be too expensive.

Similar complaints are arising again. This time they should be ignored.

For starters, the new limits would be phased in nationally between 2014 and 2031, a generous time span that will enable affected industries to take advantage of advances in technology. Some of those advances are already being implemented. New auto designs, for instance, are arriving to meet the public's demand for fuel efficiency; those designs also emit fewer smog-generating pollutants.

It's important to remember that industries also complained in 1990 when the EPA estimated that mandated reductions in sulfur dioxide, a contributor to acid rain, would cost between $2.7 billion and $4 billion a year. A decade later, an EPA analysis showed the actual cost was $1 billion to $2 billion a year.

The other thing to remember is that industries rarely bear the true costs - to health, to the environment - of their pollution.

The EPA estimates that the cost to industries for the new ozone standards will be somewhere between $19 billion and $90 billion a year by 2020, depending on what limit is chosen. The payoff for the nation in one specific area is expected to be about the same - $13 billion to $100 billion a year in health care savings alone.

The EPA estimates that improved air quality will help avoid 1,500 to 12,000 premature deaths by 2020. And there's no means to calculate the improvements in the quality of life and productivity of Americans who suffer from lung and heart disease

and other smog-related ailments.

In addition to the public health benefit, lower ozone limits also would improve the environment. Airborne nitrogen accounts for an estimated one-third of the nitrogen pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. The nitrogen, primarily from automobiles, chokes off life and creates dead zones. That damage ripples, affecting the seafood industry and other vital parts of the region's economy.

Hampton Roads may have to make adjustments to comply with the new regulations. The region had no measured smog violations last year, but it has struggled with compliance in the past, particularly in the 1990s, when 20 or more violations were common.

The new limits will present challenges. But the region's continued prosperity and quality of life depend on clean air and water, both of which will benefit from a concerted effort to reduce smog.