In a pivotal series of deliberations in 2023, most members of an EPA expert advisory panel agreed that the agency’s current standard for lung-searing ozone falls well short of adequately protecting public health.
Under a newly released agency timetable, that limit will nonetheless remain in place until at least the end of the decade.
The timetable, buried in a recently released planning document, shows that EPA intends to complete the latest review of its ambient air quality standards for ozone in 2030, meaning that there would be no change before then to the 70-parts-per-billion threshold.
That timetable runs counter to the previously stated position of many health groups that the Clean Air Act requires the review to conclude by this December. Whether they plan to now hold the agency to that goal under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is unclear.
