WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of environmental organizations submitted comments, including Clean Wisconsin, is urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its proposed “Ozone Reclassification State Implementation Plan Rule,” which would allow states to miss deadlines for reducing dangerous ozone pollution and sidestep the consequences the Clean Air Act requires — allowing smog cleanup to stall for a decade or longer in communities that are already breathing unhealthy air.
“Across Wisconsin, ozone pollution causes an estimated 100-400 premature deaths every year, and as our summers become hotter with climate change, this widespread and persistent pollution is only getting worse in our state,” said Clean Wisconsin Energy and Air Manager Ciaran Gallagher, PhD. “The EPA’s attempt to undermine Clean Air Act public health protections will mean more dangerous levels of pollution in the air we breathe. And Wisconsinites will pay the price.”
“Trump’s EPA is dialing up the pollution and shutting down the cleanup at the same time,” said Abi Vijayan, senior climate attorney at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “We’ll fight this every way possible and the law is on our side. EPA must withdraw this illegal, reckless proposal, or else families across the country will pay for it with every breath.”
The ozone health protection standard is a foundational program of the Clean Air Act, reflecting Congress’s recognition that reducing smog is essential to protecting public health. Ground-level ozone can trigger asthma attacks, cause permanent lung damage, and raise the risk of heart disease and early death. It is especially dangerous for children, older adults, and people who work or exercise outdoors. For more than half a century, the Clean Air Act has driven those pollution levels down. But, ozone pollution is now troublingly trending upwards, and today’s proposed action further moves us in the wrong direction.
“At a time when ozone pollution is rising in many parts of the country, EPA’s proposal will worsen air quality by further delaying urgently needed pollution reductions,” said Jeffrey Hammons, attorney at CATF. “This proposal is unlawful and runs counter to the agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment. If finalized, millions of people living in communities with dangerously elevated levels of smog pollution will continue to suffer while EPA gives polluters a pass. We urge EPA to withdraw this harmful proposal.”
The EPA’s proposal leaves states with unhealthy levels of ozone pollution no reason to submit their cleanup plans on time in order to bring their air quality into compliance with national ozone standards. The Clean Air Act requires areas to come into compliance with these standards through state plans that include emission reduction measures. If an area does not meet the standard by a certain deadline, it is “reclassified” to a more stringent level of ozone nonattainment and must implement stronger measures. However, instead of ensuring that states take the required actions to bring smog levels down, EPA would let a state ignore its obligations, wait for its area to be reclassified, and watch the missed requirements disappear — then repeat the pattern through successive reclassifications, each running on its own multi-year cycle. An area could reach the most severe pollution category over a decade after the problem was first identified without a single required cleanup measure ever going into effect.
“The EPA’s proposal violates the law, plain and simple. Congress required states and the EPA to move quickly to reduce ozone pollution and improve people’s health. The EPA understood this correctly for decades,” said Seth Johnson, attorney at Earthjustice. “The Trump Administration’s proposed reversal shows disdain for the kids and outdoor workers who are among the most vulnerable to the serious health harms resulting from ozone pollution. The proposal is legally and morally wrong.”
The American Lung Association’s 2026 report found that more than 152 million people breathed unhealthy levels of ozone, the highest number in six years, a distressing reversal of years of gains. More than 115 million Americans still live in areas that fail the current ozone standard, and official measures of air pollution in major regions have flattened or worsened, rather than improved. Nearly half of the children in America live in counties that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution, according to the report.
Groups say that the EPA’s proposal is also part of a broader pattern of weakening the Clean Air Act and other federal air standards. In 2026, EPA finalized the repeal of its greenhouse gas “endangerment finding” and scrapped federal pollution standards for cars and trucks. The result is an EPA that is increasing smog-forming pollution through one set of actions while dismantling the program meant to clean it up through another.
“The EPA’s proposal would render the current smog standards toothless and completely erase accountability from states to protect its residents from toxic and deadly air contamination,” said Sierra Club Senior Attorney Josh Berman. “This is yet another one of Lee Zeldin’s attempts to allow Big Fossil Fuel to continue to profit at the expense of our lives and lungs. Sierra Club will continue to push back against this harmful and dangerous proposal, and advocate for stronger, more protective guardrails for Americans’ health.”
The coalition argues that the proposal is not just bad policy but unlawful — contradicting the plain text, structure, and purpose of the Clean Air Act, nullifying the consequences Congress wrote into the statute, and reversing decades of consistent agency practice without the reasoned justification the law requires.
“Smog puts people’s lives and health at risk, and this proposal would help ensure there’s a lot more of it in the air we breathe,” said Environmental Defense Fund attorney Noha Haggag. “By letting states ignore legal deadlines to clean up our air, the Trump administration is once again providing passes to pollute.”
