Air Quality Slips After Decades of Progress

Tony Barboza and Rahul Mukherjee detail the distressing environmental news, citing data on both the national and regional levels. But to be clear: "Nowhere is the situation worse than in Southern California, where researchers found a 10% increase in Southern California deaths attributable to ozone pollution from 2010 to 2017," according to the article.

California has a looming deadline for a plan to meet the standards set by the Clean Air Act, but the state has yet to decide on a funding mechanism for implementing the billions of dollars in investments experts think it would take the state to meet the standards of the Clean Air Act.

"There are other obstacles," according to the article, "such as the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back emissions standards that California relies on to reduce pollution from cars and trucks. With each passing year, Southern California smog regulators are falling further behind in raising the $14 billion they say is needed to pay for less-polluting vehicles and clean the air to federal health standards."