Court orders EPA to adopt new air pollution rule

A federal court is giving the Obama administration a deadline for updating federal standards for smog that are more than a year overdue.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in San Francisco on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue ground-level ozone standards by Dec. 1, and a final rule by Oct. 1, 2015.

Ozone is the main ingredient in smog, a powerful lung irritant.

The ruling comes after environmental groups sued the Obama administration for failing to issue a new standard by 2013, as required by law.

In 2010, then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson proposed tightening the standards, as agency scientific advisers recommended, only to have them tabled by the White House.

Businesses and congressional Republicans said they'd hurt the economy.