US pollution ruling hailed

What price clean air for Americans?

By Jonny Dymond in Washington

Environmentalist in the United States are celebrating what they say is an historic ruling by the Supreme Court.

In a unanimous decision, the nine judges ruled that health benefits should be the sole criteria in setting air pollution standards.

Road haulage associations, manufacturers and chambers of commerce had all challenged the way the Environmental Protection Agency or EPA set pollution standards.

Lawyers for the industry lobby argued that the EPA had tightened ozone and soot levels without clear criteria and without consideration of the cost, which they put at $50bn a year.

The EPA says new pollution standards will save lives and reduce health costs

They said the new stricter controls, revised in 1997, had to take into account the cost of enforcement and balance that against health benefits.

Clean air cost

But the Supreme Court justices rejected that argument completely.

They said that the Clean Air Act, one of America's central environmental protection laws, specifically barred considerations of cost.

The justices did strike down one of the EPA's new standards as unreasonable, but environmental organisations are jubilant that the EPA has won what one group called a 'tremendously important' case.