Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman will be in St. Louis Friday for what is being billed as a major announcement on local air quality. Missourinet has learned the St. Louis area will be allowed to hold onto its “moderate” non-attainment designation under the Clean Air Act and will not have its designation bumped up to the “serious” non-attainment category. A “serious” non-compliance designation would have forced many St. Louis area businesses to take on added expenses and burdens in order to help the region comply. With the decision, the EPA is telling St. Louis it is making progress, and must continue to do so over the next three-and-a-half years. The extension runs through November of 2004.
