When it comes to regulating ground-level ozone, Missouri and Illinois have one thing in common - both think the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking the wrong approach.
But that's where the similarities end.
Missouri environmental regulators think the agency's new ozone rules are too stringent, while their Illinois counterparts believe they're too weak.
Just a few weeks ago, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources decided to join Mississippi's legal challenge to the EPA's recently revised limit on ozone. Department officials say the new standard will cost jobs in Missouri and do little to reduce smog. On the opposite side of that argument is Illinois. Earlier this summer, it joined 13 other states in a separate case against the EPA that argues the new ozone limit won't adequately protect the public from the harmful effects of ozone, which can cause or aggravate respiratory problems.
"Personally, I'm thrilled with our attorney general," said Kathy Andria, director of the Illinois-based American Bottom Conservancy. "But I think you'll find there's a whole different way of thinking on the other side of the river, and that's often the case."
It will be up to a federal appeals court to decide whether the EPA's current regulatory approach is prudent, or send the agency back to the drawing board. Either way, the states must tell the EPA by March which counties can't meet the new limits for ozone and then come up with plans to reduce pollution.
The EPA unveiled the new standard in March, several years after the agency began reviewing the science surrounding ozone, more commonly known as urban smog.
It lowered the standard to 0.075 parts per million from 0.084 parts per million. Environmental groups and public health advocates normally would have cheered a move that strengthened air quality standards.