Ozone: Status Quo

     A year ago I covered a meeting of Montgomery Area officials and representatives of the EPA. The topic: a proposed decrease in the amount of ozone allowed in the air here. The impression I got during the meeting was that a decision was more or less imminent...maybe a few weeks away.

     The weeks became months, and the months a year....then today an announcement from the EPA: The Obama White House has decided not to make any change. At least they didn't increase the amount allowed.

     You could hear the cheers from the GOP majority U.S.House to every Chamber of Commerce in the nation. Jeff Sessions and other were among those cheering.

    Business had fought hard against the change, which would have made the air cleaner, but would have also made it more difficult for pollution contributing businesses to open up plants.

     Environmentalists are disenhartened that Obama has ceded ground---again---to Big Business.

     Ozone, by the way, has serious health implications for people with breathing troubles.

[UPDATE: A Washington Post column points out the irony that the ozone standards would have been stronger if environmentalists had gone along with Bush Administration agreement, but they were convinced by the incoming Obama Administration not to sue, since they would be reducing the ozone level even more. Or not.]