The Environmental Protection Agency has announced higher air quality standards for ozone "smog" in hundreds of counties nationwide, including eight in Wisconsin. Dan Kohler, Director of Wisconsin Environment, says the standards are stronger but not strong enough. He claims the EPA has done an unprecedented move by not enacting air quality standards that were recommended by their own scientific researchers.
Kohler also believes the policy threatens to change, the more than 30 year old, Clean Air Act. He says the EPA Director is now allowing, "implementation costs to be considered in setting air quality standards and allowing state and local areas to ignore pollution problems."
The EPA says state and local officials have leniency in enacting the new standards. Some as long as twenty years.