"The Trump administration has decided to keep and defend the Obama administration’s controversial 2015 smog regulation.

Justice Department attorneys representing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told a federal court Wednesday that, after considering it for more than a year, the agency decided against pursuing revisions or a repeal to the 2015 rule that set a new standard for ground-level ozone, a component of smog.

In the brief, the attorneys said the Trump administration may have written the 2015 rule differently, considering factors like background levels of ozone that are outside of the control of states that are expected to comply with the standard."

Timothy Cama reports for The Hill August 1, 2018. [2]