Videos: State Impacts of EPA’s Ozone Proposal

Mark Green
Posted August 10, 2015

API has a new series of online ads that underscore potential risks from EPA’s proposal to impose stricter national ozone standards. The ads focus on potential impacts for individual states including Indiana, Colorado, Missouri, West Virginia and Virginia – which could see more than 38,600 jobs lost:

The key message in the ads is that an unnecessary tightening of ozone standards nationally could have dire effects locally, in each and every state.

We say unnecessary because our air is getting cleaner under existing, tough standards. According to EPA, ozone levels are down 18 percent since 2000:

And the air would continue to improve under existing standards because they are still being implemented around the country. Indeed, air quality officials in a number of states have indicated EPA’s ozone proposal may be unattainable.

Still, if EPA pushes on with stricter standards, the economic effects will be felt, according to a study by NERA Economic Consulting: $270 billion reduction in GDP per year on average from 2017 through 2040 and by more than $3 trillion over that period in present value terms. The country could see an average annual loss of 2.9 million job equivalents – as stricter standards slow or halt new infrastructure development and other economy-growing initiatives. This is why some argue the ozone proposal could be the costliest regulation in U.S. history – a regulation whose scientific basis and public health justifications are questionable.