The EPA's New Clean Air Standards: A Primer - Part 1

On November 27, 1996, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Carol Browner announced a plan to impose new national air quality standards. Specifically, the proposal to alter the current National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) calls for more severe restrictions on ground-level ozone and microscopic dust particles, not to alter the current standards. If implemented, the new standards would put into place the most massive, far-reaching environmental mandates of the decade. But because the prosposed standards are backed by weak science, there is an enormous degree of uncertainty as to whether the measures would produce the promised results.