Obama ozone decision blindsides enviros - and his own EPA

Leaders of environmental and public health groups arrived at the White House Friday morning for what was supposed to be a look-ahead at the fall energy and environment agenda. What they got instead was a rude awakening. Administration officials told the stunned enviros that President Barack Obama was pulling the plug on plans to tighten Bush-era ozone standards — standards Obama’s own EPA chief has previously declared “not legally defensible.” The environmentalists may have been the last to know, but not by much; an administration official told POLITICO that the White House didn’t notify the EPA of the decision until Thursday — and that EPA officials were not involved in the decision-making process. The EPA was “completely blindsided by this,” said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. As recently as last month, EPA lawyers were asking a federal appellate court in Washington to delay litigation over the Bush-era ozone standard because a new Obama ozone rule was just around the corner. But on Friday, Obama announced that he was asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to put the new rule on ice — referring to the decision as part of a larger effort aimed at “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.” The about-face has environmentalists and other progressives fuming...more