Feds, state face off on air quality. (Ohio EPA support US EPA's proposed air-quality standards)(Inside Report)

Whether tougher air-quality standards under consideration by the federal government are a matter of life and death or dollars and cents is at the heart of a baffle that will only get more heated as lobbying efforts intensify this year.

Major business groups, which have the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on their side, and nonprofit organizations aiming to protect public health and the environment are facing off as the U.S. EPA inches toward adopting the new air-quality rules by June.

Perhaps ironically, neither the Ohio EPA nor the American Lung Association likes the stricter rules, though their reasons are widely divergent. Both sides have launched all-out efforts to get the federal government to see the …