The U.S. government's top environmental regulator defended the Bush administration's proposal for new limits on smog against Democratic charges that it is too weak and Republican complaints that it goes too far, according to The Assocaited Press. Neither criticism pushed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson off his talking points Wednesday in an appearance before a Senate environmental panel. «I concluded the current standard does not protect public health with an adequate margin of safety and should be strengthened,» he testified repeatedly, saying that «I will be basing my decision on the science.» At issue was the EPA's recommendation, released last month, for the first new limits since 1997 on ground-level ozone _ the combination of car exhaust, industrial emissions and gasoline vapors aggravated by summertime sun and heat and more commonly known as smog. Smog is blamed for health risks for children, old people, and those suffering from asthma and other lung ailments. EPA measures smog by calculating the concentration of ozone molecules in the atmosphere over an eight-hour period. The current standard is .084 parts per million. EPA is proposing reducing that to between .070 and .075 parts per million.
