U.S.PIRG Smog Sends 53,000 to the Hospital Each Summer, Causes Over 6 Million Asthma Attacks. Despite popular impression, this is not just a Northeast problem. From Texas to Illinois and from Georgia to Maine, and everywhere in between, people are admitted to the hospital for serious, prolonged respiratory distress due to ozone smog. Although the effects of ozone are spread out over the course of the summer, the suffering of people with respiratory problems is no less real.
Ozone is a highly reactive gas that is the main component of summer smog.
Ozone is capable of destroying organic matter, including human lung and airway tissue, by essentially burning through cell walls. Several Midwestern states sued to block the reductions, and a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court delayed implementation of the EPA plan. Recently, the New York state attorney general's office announced that it would sue 17 coal-burning power plants. The Clean Air Act needs to be strengthened to protect the health of millions of Americans. Last month Congressmen Waxman and Boehlert introduced The Clean Smokestacks Act of 1999, which would close an existing legal loophole that allows old power plants to emit as much as ten times more pollution than a new plant may emit, while setting national caps for the four main power plant pollutants.