SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association (Washington, DC) has joined a long list of signatories to a letter delivered to President Barack Obama on July 29 urging him to reject a new, overly-burdensome National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to put forth in the coming weeks. The new NAAQS would be among the most expensive regulations in U.S. history, threatening the ability of American companies to "manufacture products, build new projects, produce energy, improve infrastructure and hire the workers needed to make this all happen," the letter said.

"In 2008, the EPA lowered the NAAQS to 75 parts per billion (ppb) and this new proposed rule will bring that figure down to between 65 and 70 ppb," said SPI President and CEO William R. Carteaux, in a prepared statement. "But the problem is that the previous standard has yet to be fully implemented. The EPA is trying to move the goal posts in the middle of the game, and in the process they're putting dozens of companies and thousands of American jobs at risk. SPI and the plastics industry urge the president to reject this regulation and halt the EPA's unreasonable and unfair approach to rule making that threatens all of American manufacturing."
 
According to a February 2015 economic study performed by the National Association of Manufacturers, a 65 ppb standard could reduce U.S. gross domestic product by $140 billion, result in 1.4 million fewer jobs and cost the average U.S. household $830 in lost consumption each year from 2017 to 2040. During that period, the U.S. GDP would lose a total of $1.7 trillion.
 
"The plastics industry is committed, along with the dozens of other signatories of this important letter, to ensuring a clean and safe environment, but this bait-and-switch regulatory action by the EPA only threatens our ability to innovate and work to build a better environment now and in the future," Carteaux added. "The existing 75 ppb standard for ground-level ozone should be retained and the administration should give manufacturers a chance to meet existing targets before changing them."

You can read the letter here.