The White House deflected suggestions the president caved into GOP pressure. | AP Photos Obama blindsides enviros and EPA

Leaders of environmental and public health groups arrived at the White House Friday morning for what was supposed to be a look-ahead at the fall energy and environment agenda.

What they got instead was a rude awakening.


Administration officials told the stunned enviros that President Barack Obama was pulling the plug on plans to tighten Bush-era ozone standards — standards Obama’s own EPA chief has previously declared “not legally defensible.”

The environmentalists may have been the last to know, but not by much; an administration official told POLITICO that the White House didn’t notify the EPA of the decision until Thursday — and that EPA officials were not involved in the decision-making process.

The EPA was “completely blindsided by this,” said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

As recently as last month, EPA lawyers were asking a federal appellate court in Washington to delay litigation over the Bush-era ozone standard because a new Obama ozone rule was just around the corner.

But on Friday, Obama announced that he was asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to put the new rule on ice — referring to the decision as part of a larger effort aimed at “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.”

The about-face has environmentalists and other progressives fuming.

“Many MoveOn members are wondering today how they can ever work for President Obama's reelection, or make the case for him to their neighbors, when he does something like this, after extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and giving in to tea party demands on the debt deal,” MoveOn’s executive director, Justin Ruben said in a statement. “This is a decision we'd expect from George W. Bush.”

The White House quickly deflected suggestions that the president had caved in to Republican pressure with the 2012 election looming. “This has nothing to do with politics, nothing at all,” one White House official told reporters Friday on a conference call.

But it’s hard to avoid that impression after industry and congressional Republicans launched an aggressive campaign to convince the administration to drop the standards. Major business groups have warned that the ozone rule would be one of the most expensive environmental rules ever imposed on the U.S. economy — with an estimated cost of up to $90 billion annually — and that a new rule would hurt Obama’s reelection bid.

In 2008, the Bush administration tightened the ozone limits from 84 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion, despite scientific advisers' recommendations to issue a standard that would have taken the limits down to the 60 to 70 parts per billion range.

In January 2010, the Obama EPA proposed moving down to the 60 to 70 parts per billion when averaged over an eight-hour period.

Jackson wrote that she had decided to reconsider the rule based on concerns that the Bush-era standards were “not legally defensible,” given the scientific evidence and the recommendations of the EPA’s independent science advisers.

The EPA sent a final rule to the White House in July for final review. Many observers speculated that the administration would try to appease both sides with a final standard of 70 parts per billion — more than environmentalists wanted, but less than industry feared.

And in fact, an administration source said Friday, the standard the EPA sent to the White House was set at the upper end of the range Obama’s EPA had suggested nearly two years ago.

But even that was apparently too much. With Obama’s approval ratings sinking, with Republicans on the warpath about the burden of environmental regulations — and on a day the administration had to announce that the economy created no new jobs in August — Obama announced that he was abandoning the new ozone rule.

“I want to be clear: My commitment and the commitment of my administration to protecting public health and the environment is unwavering,” he insisted. “I will continue to stand with the hardworking men and women at the EPA as they strive every day to hold polluters accountable and protect our families from harmful pollution. And my administration will continue to vigorously oppose efforts to weaken EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act or dismantle the progress we have made.”

Environmentalists are skeptical.

“I think obviously the administration has done some great things,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, the League of Conservation Voters’ senior vice president for government affairs. “But there’s also been some real disappointments, and today’s ozone announcement is at the top of the list."

Industry officials and Republican leaders crowed about the news. "This sudden admission by President Obama that ill-considered regulations do, in fact, have a negative impact upon our economy is a welcome breakthrough,” Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of its Energy and Power subcommittee, said in a statement. “With the president's change of heart on regulations, we welcome his support in having our pro-jobs and pro-growth measures signed into law.”

Jeff Holmstead, an industry attorney and former EPA air chief during the George W. Bush administration, said he was surprised by the fact that Obama took the credit — or the blame — for yanking the rule himself.

“I expected that EPA would quietly withdraw the ozone rule without any fanfare,” he said in a statement. “The political folks at the White House must believe that the president needs to show that he is concerned about too much regulation from EPA.”

The administration could now be put in the awkward position of defending the Bush-era rule in a federal appeals court, despite Jackson’s statement that it’s “not legally defensible.”

Litigation over the 2008 rules has been put on hold while the EPA pledged to reconsider the standards. EPA has repeatedly asked a federal judge to hold off briefing on the issue because it planned to issue the rule soon. Greens and public health advocates said Friday that they intend to push the court to get moving again.

Calling the White House decision not to finish reconsidering the ozone standard “inexcusable,” American Lung Association President Charles Connor said his group “now intends to revive its participation in litigation with the administration, which was suspended following numerous assurances that the administration was going to complete this reconsideration and obey the law.”

Darren Goode contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:45 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2011.