SLAYING SMOG:

EPA: Summer smog problem easing in East (JOHN HEILPRIN, August 19, 2005, AP)

EPA said that the amount of nitrogen oxides emitted from power plants and other industrial sources in the 19 states had fallen to 593,000 tons in 2004, a nearly 50 percent drop from the 1.2 million tons emitted in 2000. That reduced summer ozone over the four years by 10 percent, EPA said. [...]

The Clinton administration in 1998 ordered ground-level ozone in the East cleaned up. That EPA regulation affected the District of Columbia and 19 states: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

EPA officials said further improvements should result from a new program the agency announced in March requiring states in the East, South and Midwest, plus the District of Columbia, to reduce power plant pollutants that form smog and soot and drift downwind.

Just set the limits and let them meet them however they choose to.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 19, 2005 4:14 PM