Air Pollution

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined: (1) the progress in reducing ozone levels to comply with national air quality standards; (2) the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) review of the latest data on the health effects of ozone; and (3) EPA and state and local governments' efforts to address ozone problems in three areas not attaining the standard.

GAO found that: (1) EPA identified 317 counties or parts of the country and 31 metropolitan areas that did not meet ozone standards; (2) although 123 of the counties met the standards as of January 1, 1987, none of the 31 metropolitan areas met the standards as of August 1987; (3) although a 1986 EPA study concluded that it should set a lower standard, it revised the study, because of opposition, to more clearly define adverse ozone health effects; (4) many areas failed to meet the standards because they did not implement or enforce planned control measures or have effective control measures; (5) EPA did not use the provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to carry out oversight responsibilities; (6) scientific uncertainties in ozone information, weather patterns, modeling, and determining the proper controls also contributed to unmet deadlines; and (7) although EPA has recently proposed a program that would extend the attainment deadline for some areas of nonattainment without imposing construction sanctions, it cannot administratively extend CAA deadlines in lieu of enforcing the statutory penalties.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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