Stricter new smog limit would hit rural areas, too

Hundreds of communities far from congested highways and belching smokestacks could soon join big cities and industrial corridors in violation of stricter limits on lung-damaging smog proposed Thursday by the Obama administration. Costs of compliance could be in the tens of billions of dollars, but the government said the rules would save other billions–as well as lives–in the long run. More than 300 counties–mainly in southern California, the Northeast and Gulf Coast–already violate the current, looser requirements adopted two years ago by the Bush administration and will find it even harder to reduce smog-forming pollution enough to comply with the law.