The EPA Chokes on Smog

The world's focus on global warming can make it easy to forget that the stuff that belches from smokestacks and exhaust pipes hurts more than just the climate. It also harms human health. So it makes little sense to move aggressively against greenhouse gases but timidly against good old-fashioned smog.

That's why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision Thursday on the maximum acceptable level of smog is so disappointing. Smog causes or worsens asthma, heart disease and other ailments, especially among children. Yet the agency has chosen to impose the loosest standards it could, dismissing the warnings of its own scientific advisory panel. For a government otherwise committed to the environment, it's a remarkable misstep.