Rules Are Rules: Screw You!

Charlie Sykes has a regular feature which centers around the idiotic application of rules by clueless (and spineless) bureaucrats.

And there's never a lack of material. Today we learn that SE Wisconsin residents will continue to pay lots of extra money for gasoline--and that SE Wisconsin industrial development will be hampered for quite some time.

Southeastern Wisconsin will continue to remain in violation of federal ozone pollution standards, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.

The reason: A single air monitor in Kenosha County, less than a mile from the Illinois border, narrowly violated ozone limits between 2005 and 2007.

A legacy of the region's substandard air was the creation of the vehicle inspection program and a mandate to use reformulated gas.

Companies have also been required to operate under more restrictive regulations than the rest of the state.

And yes, indeed, it gets worse:

But the region's ongoing ozone troubles also show that counties near Lake Michigan continue to grapple with periods of unhealthy air, and more reductions will have to be found when ozone standards get stricter.

The fact of the matter is that this stuff is coming to us from Illinois, along with the threats regularly driving on Wisconsin roads.

The Chiwaukee Prairie monitor is used by Wisconsin and Illinois. Mostof the ozone comes from Illinois, the DNR says

(And most of the higher-level pollution immigrates to Wisconsin from utilities in Ohio and steel-mills in Northern Indiana, by the way...)

The Enlightened Bureaucracy made its decision based on a somewhat slim margin:

The results from last year and from high ozone levels in 2005, when pollutants pushed northward from Illinois, set the three-year ozone average for Kenosha County to 85 parts per billion, according to the DNR.

The current federal standard is 84.

It will be a while before Wisconsin reaches whatever the EPA and litigant-EnviroWackos determine is the "perfect" ozone concentration, of course.

Might NEVER happen, either. Hope you like the costs!