Out of Control

Another nice column by Reason and AEI fellow Joel Schwartz on new air pollution regs.

Could public debate on air pollution be any more absurd? EPA proposes a new standard that would reduce allowable peak PM2.5 levels by 45 percent and that would double the national PM2.5 non-attainment rate. Yet environmentalists call this “status quo” with a straight face, health scientists claim EPA ignored their recommendations, and journalists endorse these false assessments.

Environmentalists then criticize the standa Perhaps next time environmentalists would be appeased if EPA instead delayed any actual pollution reductions until after a new standard is adopted.
rd on the grounds that it might not require adoption of any new regulations, ignoring that this could only be true if EPA had already adopted regulations sufficiently demanding to attain the new standard.