WASHINGTON – American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) President and CEO Donna Harman has issued the following statement in advance of the association’s testimony at today’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) public hearing on ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).

AF&PA’s complete testimony is available here: http://www.afandpa.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/here.pdf?sfvrsn=0

“We’ve reviewed the science at length, and the fact is the existing standards are adequately protective and should not be tightened beyond the current 75 ppb at this time. EPA’s own evidence is limited and inconsistent across the available studies. Furthermore, the agency’s 2008 NAAQS have not been fully implemented to know the resulting benefits from that round of compliance. EPA should focus its efforts on completing the 2008 standards implementation before piling on more costly compliance investments that the science shows would have a negligible impact on overall air quality.”