Republicans have spent six years campaigning against President Barack Obama’s “war on coal” and promising to fight the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations. Now that Republicans have gained control of both chambers of Congress, they are in a position to declare war with the EPA.

The GOP’s plans for environmental regulation are hardly a secret. The Senate’s new leadership includes a majority leader who promised he would “get the EPA reined in,” an environmental chairman who thinks global warming is a hoax, and a newly elected senator who would like to eliminate the EPA altogether.

Their most publicized plan is to derail the Obama administration’s proposed cuts to carbon pollution, but there are plenty of other, lesser-known EPA targets that are equally at risk. Republicans are attempting to…

Fight Ozone Reduction

The EPA will announce new regulations that lower the existing standard for ozone, or smog, from a current level of 75 parts per billion, which scientists say is too high to protect public health. Exactly how ambitious this proposal is won’t be known for a few weeks. But GOP leadership has already pledged to prevent it. South Dakota Senator John Thune proposed a bill that would block any new standard until there is 85 percent compliance with the old one.