The Environmental Protection Agency is starting a review process for the nation's standard on ground-level ozone pollution, a component of smog, The Hill reported.
According to The Hill, the agency will post a notice in the Federal Register on Tuesday, accepting public comments as it prepares its plan for a review.
The fresh look comes in the wake of new standards President Donald Trump set out in an April memo instructing the EPA to consider factors like "adverse public health or other effects that may result from implementation" of the rules — and the extent to which areas have background levels of the pollutants that are not caused by human activity, The Hill reported.
Both areas have long been pushed by industry to try to get more lenient air pollution standards written, The Hill reported.
The EPA set its latest ozone standard in 2015, declaring 70 parts per billion is the acceptable level for ambient air.
The Hill noted EPA head Scott Pruitt — who sued to stop the 2015 rule when he was Oklahoma's attorney general — tried last year to delay implementation of the ozone standard, and is still considering seeking changes, The Hill reported.
According to a report in the subscription-only Energy and Environment News' Greenwire and reprinted by Science Magazine, the agency earlier this month published a draft plan titled "Increasing Consistency and Transparency in Considering Costs and Benefits in the Rulemaking Process."
Environmental and public health groups are concerned the draft plan could have profound implications for air quality standards and ground-level ozone pollution, Greenwire reported.
Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must reevaluate the ozone standard every five years to examine new scientific findings or other changes.
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