The first ozone alert of 2015 was issued June 17 amid 90-degree temperatures in metro Atlanta, a “Code Orange” warning children and “sensitive” individuals to “limit prolonged outdoor exertion.”A new proposal by the federal Environmental Protection Agency would once again lower the ozone level allowable under the Clean Air Act. Unfortunately, the EPA is ignoring the failure of an experiment it has conducted for 40 years: While it has ordered reductions in the amount of ozone allowable in the air in order to reduce asthma, asthma has increased.From 1979 to 1997, the maximum allowable level for ozone was set at 120 parts per billion, averaged over one hour. During this period, maximum one-hour ozone concentrations for the nation decreased 20 percent.
The great EPA ozone-asthma caper