Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Less than a month after the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would tighten smog standards, Texas could join a lawsuit to stop the change.

An e-mail sent Thursday morning by the National Association of Attorneys General to gauge interest in a lawsuit over the standards for ozone, the main component of smog, stated that Texas had expressed some interest in a suit.

"Mississippi would like to know if any other state AGs are looking into a possible suit against the EPA to stop enforcement of the new, more stringent Clean Air Act standards for ozone?" Jeffrey Hunter, an assistant to the executive director of the association, wrote in an e-mail to chief deputies of attorney generals across the country. "They have been told that several states' governors, possibly, AL, LA, TX, ARK, GA, SC, IN, may be interested in filing such a lawsuit."

The American-Statesman obtained a copy of the e-mail from the Sierra Club.

Some governors, including Gov. Rick Perry, have argued that the new smog standards are too burdensome for business.

Perry's office did not say whether it would join such a suit.

"We always keep our options open," said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Perry. The Texas and Mississippi attorney general's offices and the national association declined to comment.

The new standards, announced in March, lower the threshold for ozone, a lung-damaging irritant, from its current 84 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion.

As the federal government has established more stringent rules, ozone levels have dropped 21 percent nationwide since 1980.

"The Clean Air Act is not a relic to be displayed in the Smithsonian, but a living document that must be modernized to continue realizing results," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in a statement last month.

But it could be years before the new standards go into effect. The EPA last set ozone standards in 1997, but it took the agency another half-dozen years and several lawsuits to put them in place.

EPA officials estimated that the new standards will prevent cases of bronchitis, aggravated asthma, premature deaths and hospital visits. Those benefits will save between $2 billion and $19 billion in health care costs, according to the EPA.

No one, however, has been happy with the new standard. Environmental groups had hoped the EPA would adopt standards as low as 60 parts per billion, as recommended by its scientific advisory panel. Industry groups said the new standards, which EPA estimates will cost as much as $8.5 billion to implement, are too pricey.

Neither the governor's office nor the state attorney general's office has talked with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about whether to attack the new ozone standards, Commissioner Larry Soward said.

"It's pretty outrageous that some states are actually contemplating litigation to maintain the completely unprotective (current) standard," said Ilan Levin, an Austin attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project.

In December, Perry, along with 10 other governors, wrote the EPA that tightening the ozone standards have "uncertain health and environmental benefits."

On March 12 Perry issued a statement: "The EPA's decision to change ozone air quality attainment standards has Texas and other states chasing a moving target at the expense of taxpayers and our economy."