RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina - June 27 - The non-profit Clean Air Watch today urged the Bush administration to reject a push by the oil industry to inject politics into the process for setting national clean air standards.

"Don't pollute this process with politics," said Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell. "And don't let the oil industry or other big special-interest polluters -- or White House political operatives -- interfere with the EPA's scientific integrity."

Clean Air Watch joined with the American Lung Association and other clean-air advocates as EPA held a "workshop" in North Carolina on a controversial plan to change the way in which EPA sets clean air standards.

O'Donnell noted that the national standards "are the heart and lungs of the Clean Air Act. They form the life support for all the specific cleanup programs under the Clean Air Act."

Those standards are supposed to be set solely based on science.

The oil industry and other special interests have argued in court that economics -- which means politics -- should be a factor in setting those standards. But the Supreme Court unanimously rejected that argument.

Now, however, the EPA is considering a different tactic by the oil industry to achieve the same end.

"We expect you to protect the scientific integrity of the standard-setting process," O'Donnell said.

"That means rejecting the oil company special-interest attempt to win here what they lost at the Supreme Court -- their attempt to corrupt the process with politics."

The full Clean Air Watch statement is available at http://blogforcleanair.blogspot.com/.

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