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WASHINGTON - Federal scientists want to tighten smog standards, a step that would allow tens of millions of Americans to breathe easier. The plan also would run head-on into President Bush's hopes of weaning Americans from gasoline by using more smog-producing ethanol. Environmental Protection Agency scientists on Wednesday will say that tougher standards "would provide greater health protection for sensitive groups, including asthmatic children and other people with lung disease, healthy children and older adults — especially those active outdoors, and outdoor workers." Nearly 160 million people now breathe illegal levels of ozone pollution — smog — mostly in and...

Toxic Haze From China Blankets Korea A toxic haze enveloped the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday after industrial pollutants from China accumulated in the sky over the West Sea due to high temperatures and weak winds. The Seoul metropolitan area was blanketed in smog in daytime, showing an increase in fine dust density of four to six times over last weekend. According to the Environment Ministry, the pollutants began blowing in from China on Monday to pervade the sky over the entire peninsula. Fine dust density in Songpa-gu, Seoul soared from 42 microgram per cubic meter on Jan. 13 to...

Stage 3 Green Smog Attack Hits Inland Empire "Fuel is saved and people are made ill." - Alice M. Ottobani, former toxicologist, State of California Biologist Sam Huang's "Killer Coal" letter (Dec. 30) is highly misleading (see here: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/localviews/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_D_op_1231_huang_iv_loc.255ce50.html It wasn't sulphur dioxide, a byproduct of coal, per se that killed thousands of Londoners in 1952. It was the confining of smoke from old coal stoves in unventilated homes during a cold snap that caused deaths, mostly in vulnerable elderly people and frail infants who were housebound. Research indicates it wasn't the pollutants - sulphur dioxide and soot - but...

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Bush administration's strategy for reducing smog, which impacts the health of more than half the nation's population, mostly those prone to asthma and other respiratory illnesses. The Environmental Protection Agency rules for forcing state cleanups of smog don't meet Clean Air Act requirements, a three-judge panel rule in a suit brought by a Southern California clean-air agency, environmental groups and some mid-Atlantic and Eastern states downwind of others states' smog. Circuit Judge Judith Rogers, writing for the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia,...

DIAMOND BAR Southern California would have to cut smog emissions in half by 2020 to meet federal clean air standards, according to a proposed plan released Tuesday. Regulators with the South Coast Air Quality Management District unveiled the draft blueprint for cleaning up what it called the worst overall air quality in the nation. It called for tightening pollution standards on everything from cars to lawn mowers, providing incentives for businesses to replace aging diesel equipment, and reducing pollution from ships at the sprawling Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex. "We need a no-holds-barred campaign to meet the formidable challenge of...

Southern California has once more earned the dubious honour of having the smoggiest air in the United States, new research showed. Figures released by California's Air Quality Management District late Thursday said the region, which includes Los Angeles and San Diego, had the worst smog levels ahead of the San Joaquin Valley, in Northern California, and Houston, Texas. According to the figures, Southern California had 86 days of unhealthy air during the smog season, which runs from May 1 and ends on October 1. It is the third year in a row the region has topped the smog rankings, the...

Hundreds treated over Tehran smog Traffic restrictions are being enforced in an attempt to reduce pollution More than 1,600 people have been taken to hospitals in Tehran as pollution in the Iranian capital reaches critical levels, health officials have said. Hospitals have reported increased cases of heart attacks and breathing problems, while many residents are complaining of fatigue and headaches. Public offices and schools have been closed in an attempt to reduce traffic, and clear the city's blanket of smog. Authorities have warned of thousands of casualties if pollution levels persist. There is no wind or rain and the dirty...

All schools and nurseries in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have been closed for two days because air pollution has reached dangerous levels. Two million school children have been given an unexpected day off. The authorities have advised children, the elderly and people suffering from heart and lung disease to stay indoors. There are three million cars in Tehran, of which two-thirds are more than 20-years-old and lack modern exhaust filters. Petrol is heavily subsidised. It is estimated that up to 5,000 people die every year from air pollution in the city. Tehran has been suffering from severe smog since the...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - We're No. 1. The greater Los Angeles region shoved aside Houston and the San Joaquin Valley as the national smog capital in 2005, despite having cleaner air this year than last, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Air quality in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties exceeded the EPA's smog standard on 84 days this year. The EPA considers the totals to be final numbers for 2005 because the smog season runs from May through September. "It's a tough job cleaning up the ozone at this point because there are not a lot...

China's rapid economic growth and industrialization is posing a major challenge to the environment with air pollution likely to rise five-fold in 15 years, officials warned Monday. "In the future 15 years, the population of China will reach 1.46 billion and the GDP will double, the pollution load will increase by four to five times according to the present resource consumption rate and pollution control level," said Zhang Lijun, vice minister of China's environmental agency SEPA. Zhang was speaking at an air pollution conference organized by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the US Environmental Protection Agency, the environmental directorate...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sensors and video cameras on Southern California freeways could begin recording pollutants spewing from tailpipes by early next year as part of a program to reduce smog levels in the nation's smoggiest region. The program, perhaps the largest of its kind, would measure vehicles entering freeways in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside. The sensors measure pollutants as vehicles accelerate and the cameras snap an image of the license plates. There's even an incentive to getting caught. Owners of smoky clunkers would receive letters informing them that the government would help pay...

Air district says bovines on the region's booming dairy farms are the biggest single source of smog-forming gases. The industry takes issue. Got smog? California's San Joaquin Valley for some time has had the dirtiest air in the country. Monday, officials said gases from ruminating dairy cows, not exhaust from cars, are the region's biggest single source of a chief smog-forming pollutant.

SAN FRANCISCO – California air-quality regulators are considering a requirement that big-rig trucks install computer systems to pinpoint on-the-road emissions problems, a move that could spur a change in federal rules. The California Air Resources Board, or ARB, is expected to vote on July 21 on what would be the first such regulations in the United States for heavy-duty trucks, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency is likely to approve a similar rule, the ARB said. California, the most populous U.S. state, often leads the way on environmental policy, and cars and light trucks in the state already face similar...

Dairies cause more smog than cars, according to the San Joaquin Valley air district. Recent science shows milk cows produce at least 60 percent more smog-forming chemicals than previous estimates, which were based on aging studies, valley air officials say. And that's "likely to be an underestimate," said Rick McVaigh, director of permit services for the air district, which released a draft pollution-per-cow estimate Monday. Dairy industry representatives are outraged that the district would rely on incomplete and irrelevant science, they say. "It's unbelievable what they've come up with," said Michael Boccadoro, spokesman for a dairy lobbying group known as...

Study Reveals Natural Air Cleaners Bjorn Carey LiveScience Staff Writer/LiveScience.com Fri May 20, 2005 New! Improved! 20 percent more cleaning power! That could be the label on new smog-reducing product found in Earth's atmosphere. Natural chemicals in the air scrub away pollution more effectively than previously thought, according to new research. Chemicals in the air produce natural air cleaners called hydroxyl radicals, which gobble up smog hydrocarbons and break them down. These chemicals have turned out to be better than expected at producing a substance Mr. Clean would love: hydroxyl radicals, which consist of one oxygen atom and one atom...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal judge has ruled that a Southern California clean-air agency may impose its antismog rules on city buses, waste haulers and other public fleet vehicles. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with oil companies and diesel engine manufacturers who claimed local pollution rules of the South Coast Air Quality Management District conflicted with national standards in the Clean Air Act. The high court said the agency could not require private fleets to use engines that burn cleaner fuels, but it sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether the regulations could...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Fewer Americans have had to breathe unhealthy levels of smog or microscopic soot in recent years, but air pollution remained a threat in counties where more than half the nation lives, the American Lung Association said in an annual report Thursday. Using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the group found that the number of counties in which unhealthy air was recorded fell significantly for the first time in six years, to 390 from 441 in last year's report. The new report covered 2001 to 2003, while the previous one analyzed pollution levels from 2000...

Environmental groups have the right to sue state agencies for not controlling pesticide pollution, a federal judge in Sacramento ruled Monday. State air quality agencies violated the federal Clean Air Act,which calls for a 20 percent reduction in smog caused by pesticides between 1990 and 2005, the lawsuit says. The required smog reduction hasn't happened in the San Joaquin Valley, where pesticide-induced smog has increased since 1990. "I'm ecstatic that (the judge) saw it our way," said Teresa DeAnda, an activist from Earlimart whose organization joined four others in the suit. They say the state's approach to pesticide smog pollution...

The deadly air of Hong Kong Smog from China kills 15,000 a year One country, one foul environment MARTIN REGG COHN ASIA BUREAU HONG KONG—It is a view to die for. But the awe-inspiring vistas from Victoria Peak, overlooking Hong Kong's Fragrant Harbour, are shrouded in smog most days. And people are dying as a result. On a few clear days, the mountains of mainland China still beckon from across the harbour. But, on a record 65 days last year, the view was completely blocked by thick air pollution, yellowish and acrid, wafting across the border into this former British...

Cuba Cracks Down On Smoking HAVANA, Jan. 19, 2005 Times change, and so did Cuban President Fidel Castro (at left, in 2004), who gave up smoking after decades of never being without his trademark cigar (at right, back in the 1960s). (Photo: AP / CBS) Tobacco is second to sugar as Cuba's most important crop, but the country is increasingly less dependent on farming, with agriculture accounting for about 5% of the economy, industry for about 27% and service businesses about 68%. (CBS/AP) Despite its reputation as a producer of fine cigars, Cuba is preparing to ask smokers to step...