Two Indiana counties taken off EPA list

[hippiechick]

Heh, what they don't say is that they're off the list, not because the air is cleaner, but because Bush and the EPA have so gutted the standards that they don't seem to be in violation anymore ...

http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/234853-4331-102.html

Associated Press
April 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that 21 counties in nine states are being removed from the government's watch list of areas in the country with the dirtiest air.

St. Joseph and Elkhart counties in northern Indiana were among those removed, the agency said. The government had identified 225 counties in 20 states that were either unclassified or not meeting its new clean-air standards for reducing the amount of microscopic soot in the air, putting those areas on notice that they must devise a pollution-reduction plan.

Failure to comply could mean a county will have to limit development and its state could lose federal highway dollars. The states with counties now in compliance with the clean-air rules for soot are Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and California.

Since those designations had been made in December with 2003 data, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and Nuclear Safety, asked the EPA to review its list based on 2004 information.

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