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EPA air chief leaves defense of ozone decision to Obama
The Environmental Protection Agency’s top air quality official offered scant backing for President Obama’s surprise decision last week to scuttle planned EPA rules to toughen Bush-era smog standards.
“The president issued a statement and it should speak for itself,” Gina McCarthy, EPA’s assistant administrator for air and regulation, said Thursday.
“The president made a decision and he asked the agency to pull back that rule, and clearly the agency will. We will work very aggressively on the next review, which is what he asked us to do, the most current science, and we will move forward in 2013.” The administration plans to reconsider the standard in 2013.
McCarthy, when the ozone standard came up again at the hearing, said, "The president made a sound decision and the agency is following it."
But speaking briefly to reporters outside the hearing, McCarthy again cast EPA as following a White House mandate.
"I was asked whether or not the president had made a decision and if I agreed with it. I indicated that the president had a clear statement on that issue, that was his choice, and the administration is following it," she said.
Obama, in announcing the ozone decision Friday, cited the need to reduce regulatory burdens and uncertainty, especially during the economic recovery.
He also suggested that the ozone rule was a special case.
“Work is already under way to update a 2006 review of the science that will result in the reconsideration of the ozone standard in 2013,” Obama said Friday in a news release. “Ultimately, I did not support asking state and local governments to begin implementing a new standard that will soon be reconsidered.”
The White House had come under immense pressure from industry groups and Republicans who alleged the rule would hinder the economy.
But the White House also vowed to hold firm on other Clean Air Act rules that Republicans are pushing to delay or scuttle.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was brief in a prepared statement last week on Obama’s decision to override EPA on the ozone rule — a rule she has touted as vital to reducing the public health impacts of smog.
“We will revisit the ozone standard, in compliance with the Clean Air Act,” said Jackson, who had previously cited concerns the Bush-era ozone standards are "not legally defensible." But her comment also touted other EPA efforts to cut air pollution.
Jackson also noted that EPA has made “tremendous progress” under Obama, and cited measures to cut nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide from power plants, upcoming rules to cut mercury emissions from power plants, and other protections the agency is enacting.
—This post was updated at 1:35 p.m.
