But environmentalists said the announcement would only delay the time when the region truly solves its unhealthy ozone problem. Lewis Green, a lawyer for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, said he believed the EPA violated a recent federal court ruling on the issue. Green was referring to the Jan. 29 order of U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that required the EPA to issue its determination by March 12. The federal agency has approved local efforts to reduce smog and ozone, and says St. Louis has until 2004 to meet Clean Air Act requirements. At a news conference Friday morning in Fenton, Christie Whitman, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced that her agency approved plans by Missouri and Illinois to reduce ozone in the region.
Ozone is a key component of smog.
Lawyers for the coalition and the Sierra Club began preparing to go back to court to challenge the extension. Green referred to a Jan. 29 court decision requiring the EPA to issue in March an assessment of whether the region met the national ozone standard. That would open the door to tougher pollution controls and penalties that some feel could hurt the local economy. A series of court actions and EPA pronouncements led to a June 29 deadline for Whitman's assessment. Further clouding the smog issue is the status of the EPA's ozone standard.