Many East Coast residents should be breathing easier as smog-forming emissions of nitrogen oxides from power plants and industry continue to decline.

Summertime emissions dropped 7 percent ù more than 38,000 tons ù from 2005 to 2006, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson told reporters in a conference call Thursday. Emissions in 2006 measured 491,483 tons.

Those figures come from the most recent EPA report tracking May-September emissions. The largest reductions took place in the mid-central region that includes Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. Overall, emissions were 60 percent lower than in 2000 and 74 percent lower than in 1990, records show.

"As a trained scientist à I know the proof is in the numbers," Johnson said, adding that the study area includes about 55 million people living in certain sections of 19 eastern states and the District of Columbia. "The reductions are good news for the health of our environment and good news for the health of our communities."

The reduction of nitrous oxides, a precursor to smog, has helped reduce ground-level ozone concentrations an average of 5 to 8 percent in the eastern United States in the last three years. Back in 2001-2003, the EPA designated 104 sectors of eastern states as nonattainment zones because they didn´t meet 8-hour ozone standards. That number dwindled to 19 by 2006.

Johnson would not say if or how the numbers released Thursday might affect ground-level ozone standards. He is still on track to release new limits ù or keep the old ones intact ù by March.

The agency´s eventual ruling will affect two types of ozone standards. One applies to protecting the public´s health, including sensitive populations such as asthmatics, children and the elderly. The other, which might involve separate standards, applies to protecting plants, trees and crops from environmental damage.

EPA attributes recent drops in nitrogen oxides to the success of a market-based, cap-and-trade program started in 2004 to reduce emissions from power plants and other large combustion sources in eastern states. A majority of the participating 2,579 "units" are electricity-generating boilers, turbines and combined cycle operations.

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