Texas Transit Association

… Twenty-three in Texas.
Counties in 31 states are flunking air-quality standards, drawing a federal warning to clean up industrial plants, put new restrictions on cars and take other action to make their air less polluted.

Nearly 500 counties, mostly in California and the eastern third of the country, were cited Thursday as having too much smog-causing pollution in violation of the federal clean air law. (More from EPA on the following page.)

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The Environmental Protection Agency told state and local officials to develop new pollution controls to reduce ground-level ozone, a precursor of smog. Some 159 million people, more than half the U.S. population, live in areas singled out by the government for contributing to unhealthy air.

Acting under court order, the EPA identified all or parts of 474 counties that either have air that is too dirty or have pollution that causes neighboring counties to fail the air quality test.
Other areas with marginal or moderate pollution problems have until either 2007 to 2010 to comply. Areas that continue to violate the standard could lose federal highway dollars.

Those areas include a ring of Great Lakes states and a concentration of Northeast states from the Washington area to Boston. Also failing the federal test were parts of eastern Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina, as well as Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

The EPA said regions in noncompliance may have to impose new controls on industrial plants, restrict transportation and require tougher vehicle inspection programs. Some counties may have to require the use of special, cleaner-burning gasoline. [Associated Press]