Just two years ago, President George Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency lowered the ozone standard from 84 parts per billion (ppb) to the current 75 ppb. Ozone is a naturally occurring molecule made up of three oxygen atoms that can be unhealthy at high levels. It is often created when vehicle and industrial emissions (from manufacturers and refineries) react with sunlight.
The EPA normally waits at least five years before revising their ozone standard, but their is nothing normal about the Obama EPA. In January 2010, the Obama EPA proposed reducing the again, this time to 60 ppb. The EPA claims this will save as many as 12,000 lives a year and as much as $100 billion annually in health care spending by 2020. But then there is the cost.
According to a new study by the Manufacturers Alliance are huge including $1 trillion in annual attainment costs by 2020 and over 7 million jobs lost. Some of the states hardest hit? Washington would lose 234,000 jobs, Ohio 296,000, Pennsylvania 351,000, and Louisiana 983,000, and Texas would lose a whopping 1.7 million jobs.
