Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that over 470 U.S. counties, including every county in New Jersey and Connecticut, and all of New York City have failed the EPA’s health based standards for ozone pollution. The EPA findings have led to the standard finger-pointing, with many politicians citing Bush Administration stationary source policies and Midwestern power plants as the cause for the region’s bad air. But experts say much of the blame lies at home, in the region’s excessive vehicle emissions.

NJ Sierra Club Executive Director Jeff Tittel told the Bergen Record that cleaning up every out-of-state power plant wouldn’t put New Jersey in compliance with federal air standards. He said New Jersey must work harder to reduce the number of cars on the road before looking to blame other states.

Environmental Defense’s Andy Darrell opined in a Newsday piece, "(New York) needs to invest in clean transportation. It’s not news that our roads are choked with congestion, and congestion generates air pollution." Darrell noted that trucks pollute heavily, and a shift of the region’s freight from trucks to rail could reduce highway congestion considerably.

Top officials in the region are in fact taking action on car pollution, imposing tougher vehicle emission standards. New York, along with Massachusetts, was one of the first states to do adopt strict California emissions standards in the early 1990’s. Governor Pataki and the MTA have also helped significantly reduce transit bus particulate emissions, though truck pollution remains an unconquered air pollution frontier.

This past winter, New Jersey adopted the California-level pollution standards, which will start with the 2009 model year. "Automobiles in New Jersey contribute 40% of the pollution that diminishes our air quality, and more than 80% of airborne carcinogens," said Governor McGreevey upon the bill’s passage. New Jersey, as our readers know, has also made huge investments in the expansion of its mass transit system over the past decade.