This post is by Vickie Patton, Deputy General Counsel at Environmental Defense, and a former attorney in the EPA’s General Counsel’s office.
Two lawsuits were filed today against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which sits in San Francisco. The first lawsuit was filed by California, and the second by several environmental organizations – Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Conservation Law Foundation, and the International Center for Technology Assessment.
The lawsuits challenge EPA’s denial of California’s request for a preemption waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement the state’s landmark standards for greenhouse gas emissions – requests that have been granted by EPA over 50 times in the past 40 years [PDF].
The EPA’s decision relies on a flawed argument that the federal courts already have rejected and are likely to reject again.
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