EPA vs. July 4th Fireworks?

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EPA Vs. Fireworks
Posted 07/13/2011 06:48 PM ET


Overregulation: The Environmental Protection Agency is at it again — this time eyeing smog standards so stringent it could actually force cities to choose between July 4th fireworks and hugely expensive new rules.

When the EPA was enacting stricter smog standards in the '90s, critics said some communities would have to sacrifice things like 4th of July fireworks to comply. Then-EPA-head Carol Browner dismissed such talk as "nothing more than scare tactics" from polluters. "They are false," she said in 1977. "They are wrong. They are manipulative."

Tell that to Wichita.

Few would think of this south-central city in Kansas as having a big smog problem. But under current standards it's now one day away from breaching the EPA's standard for ozone, the main ingredient in smog.

That's because the city's 4th of July fireworks pushed its ozone levels over the EPA limit for the third day this year. One more violation and it could find itself forced to produce an EPA-approved smog-cutting plan that would, as the Wichita Eagle reported, "cost taxpayers and businesses millions of dollars."

Now, the EPA is expected to announce later this month if it'll tighten the smog standard even more. Doing so would shove still more cities into the "polluted" category and leave many more with just a fireworks display between them and costly EPA mandates.

And make no mistake: The price tag will be big. The EPA puts the cost at upward of $90 billion a year. But the Manufacturers Alliance says it'll be closer to $1 trillion, and will cost millions of jobs as companies spend increasingly large amounts of money to scrub increasingly small amounts of pollutants out of the air.

All this money, however, will do little, if anything, to improve public health, despite what green groups or the American Lung Association might insist.

Joel Schwartz, co-author of the book "Air Quality in America," notes that "evidence has mounted that ozone at current, historically low levels is causing little or no harm, even in the most polluted areas of the country."

Don't be surprised to find EPA head Lisa Jackson coming down in favor of a stricter smog standard, no matter the cost. President Obama has given her agency free rein to wreak havoc on the economy with a seemingly daily download of expensive new rules and regulations.

If Americans haven't caught on to the harm this out-of-control agency is causing, they might once their own towns start canceling 4th of July fireworks to appease EPA dictates.