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WASHINGTON — Big industries are waging an intense lobbying effort to block new, tougher limits on air pollution that is blamed for hundreds of heart attacks, deaths and cases of asthma, bronchitis and other breathing problems.

The Environmental Protection Agency is to decide within weeks whether to reduce the allowable amount of ozone — commonly referred to as smog — in the air.

A tougher standard would require hundreds of counties across the country to find new ways to reduce smog-causing emissions of nitrogen oxides and chemical compounds from tailpipes and smokestacks.

Groups representing manufacturers, automakers, electric utilities, grocers and cement makers met with White House officials recently in a last-ditch effort to keep the health standard unchanged. They argued that tightening it would be costly and harm the economy in areas that would have to find additional air pollution controls.

Oil and chemical companies also have pressed their case for leaving the current requirements alone in meetings on Capitol Hill and with the Bush administration. A dozen senators and the Agriculture Department urged the EPA not to tamper with the existing standard.

On the other side are health experts who conclude that tens of millions of people, particularly the elderly and small children, are still being harmed by poor air quality.

The EPA said last summer that the current health standard — no more than 80 parts of ozone for every billion parts of air — does not provide needed protection against asthma, heart attacks and respiratory problems.

The EPA has estimated a reduction to 70 parts per billion could result annually in 2,300 fewer non-fatal heart attacks; 48,000 fewer respiratory problems, acute bronchitis and asthma attacks; 7,600 fewer respiratory-related hospital visits; and 890,000 fewer days when people miss work or school.

Under court order to review the standard, the EPA must decide what to do by the middle of the month.

"The less pollution in the air, the fewer people are going to get sick, fewer children will have asthma attacks, fewer people are going to die," said Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association, which has argued along with almost every other health and medical group to tighten the smog standard, which was issued in 1997.

The federal health standards set air-quality benchmarks that state and local officials must strive to meet through various pollution-reduction measures or risk federal penalties such as the loss of federal highway money.

The law says the standard must be based on protecting public health and not cost, a position the Supreme Court has reinforced.