Climate 411

EPA Hands Over the Keys with Clean Power Plan, California Already on Cruise Control

By Derek Walker / Published: June 2, 2014

EPA’s Clean Power Plan, proposed today, is a roadmap for cutting dangerous pollution from power plants, and as with any map, there are many roads to follow. For this journey, states are in the driver’s seat and can steer themselves in the direction most beneficial to their people and to the state’s economy, as long as they show EPA they are staying on the map and ultimately reaching the final destination.

As usual, California got off to a head start, explored the territory, blazed a lot of new trails, and left a number of clues on how states can transition to a lower carbon future, and California’s successes are one proven, potential model for other states to follow. The state’s legacy of clean energy and energy efficiency progress is a big reason the White House and EPA could roll out the most significant national climate change action in U.S. history.

Way back in the mid-1970s, when Governor Jerry Brown did his first tour of duty, California pioneered what remains one of the most effective tools for cutting pollution and saving money:  energy efficiency. The state’s efficiency standards, largely aimed at buildings and appliances, have saved Californians $74 billion and avoided the construction of more than 30 power plants. All those energy savings have translated into California residential electricity bills that are 25% lower than the national average.  What’s more, California produces twice as much economic output per kilowatt hour of electricity usage as the national average.

While energy efficiency has done yeoman’s work pulling costs down, reducing the need for dirty energy, and supercharging the state’s clean energy economy, California has also brought bold approaches to cleaning up its power supply. The California Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) requires 33% of all electricity sold in California to come from renewable sources by 2020, the most aggressive of the 29 states with RPS measures on the books.

In 2006, California enacted Senate Bill 1368, a groundbreaking law that set the nation’s first greenhouse gas emissions standard for power plants, a forerunner of EPA’s Clean Power Plan announced today. The same year, the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) instituted a statewide limit on greenhouse gas emissions, requiring California to return to 1990 levels by 2020. Power plants are capped under AB 32’s successful cap-and-trade program, another precedent that set the table for EPA’s Clean Power Plan, which establishes a national limit on power plant pollution for the first time. This robust suite of policies resulted in California cutting carbon pollution from in-state and imported electricity by 16% between 2005 and 2010-2012.

Given this track record, it’s no surprise that Californians strongly support pollution limits on power plants. According to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) 2013 survey, 76% of Californians support “stricter emissions limits on power plants,” and 65% of survey respondents say that California should act immediately to cut emissions and not wait for the economy to improve, a record-high level of support. The survey also shows that Californians believe the economy will improve because of strong environmental regulations, and that you don’t have to have one or the other. Data corroborating this view continues to pile up:  the state now has its lowest unemployment rate since 2008 even with increasingly stringent environmental policies.

California is proof positive that states can fashion creative policies that improve their environmental and economic bottom line, and that’s exactly what will be needed to make EPA’s Clean Power Plan a durable and resounding success. California’s roadmap includes a variety of alternative routes, giving other states a chance to adopt or adapt them to meet the needs of their own unique journeys toward a healthier future.

This post first appeared on our California Dream 2.0 blog.

Posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Policy / Read 1 Response

New EPA rule for dirty power plants fuels strange debate

By Keith Gaby / Published: June 2, 2014

Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of carbon pollution in the United States.

In the downside-up Alice in Wonderland world of Congress, we are about to begin a debate about whether unlimited pollution is a good thing.

It will be triggered by the Obama administration’s historic announcement today that for the first time, America’s fossil-fueled power plants will not be allowed to release limitless amounts of carbon pollution – a policy that will improve the chances our children and grandchildren will have a safe and healthy future.

No one, of course, will stand up and say they love pollution.

But you’re about to hear elected officials and industry lobbyists talk very loudly about the calamity that will occur if we impose any restriction at all on carbon pollution from power plants.

Learn how you can support carbon limits

Never mind that power plants are the largest source of this pollution, or that they cause major damage to our environment and our health. And don’t worry that up until now, there have been no national limits on them at all.

According to these folks, unless we allow companies to pollute as much as they want, we will face catastrophe.

Pollution is bad – period

The new rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would establish standards for carbon pollution from existing power plants, just as they have standards for soot and mercury and other pollutants. The rule is based on decades of science, and will be proposed under authority granted by Congress through the Clean Air Act.

More importantly, it’s based on two pieces of basic common sense:

  1. When there is no limit on pollution, you get a lot of pollution.
  2. Pollution is bad.

It doesn’t seem to reassure the unlimited pollution crowd that every past effort to reduce air pollution has resulted in a net benefit for our economy as well as for our health. In fact, the benefits of most EPA Clean Air Act rules outweigh the costs by 30 to 1.

But as reliably as a humid summer in Washington, critics of the law will wildly over-estimate the cost of complying with new pollution reduction rules.

The impacts of unlimited pollution are scary, as outlined in two recent scientific reports that outline the situation globallyand in the United States. Kids will have more asthma attacks, storms will be more destructive, drought more severe, and lots of other dangerous problems.

Compare that future to one in which we have reasonable limits on carbon pollution. They won’t solve all of our problems, but they are a significant step forward. The new EPA rule will kick-start a transition to a clean-energy and low-carbon future, which will lead to economic and health benefits for everyone.

So next time someone tells you that limits on carbon emissions are a bad idea, ask if he (or she) thinks unlimited pollution is a responsible policy – and watch the person change the subject in a hurry.

It’s how these conversations usually end.

This blog first appeared on EDF Voices

Posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions / Comments are closed

The Supreme Court Has Been Clear – EPA Has Authority to Address Carbon Pollution from Power Plants

By Vickie Patton / Published: May 30, 2014

(This post was written by EDF General Counsel Vickie Patton and EDF Senior Attorney Peter Zalzal)

This upcoming Monday, June 2nd, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will announce proposed standards to reduce harmful, climate-destabilizing carbon pollution from our nation’s fleet of existing fossil fuel fired power plants.

EPA has clear authority to address this harmful pollution, authority that is manifest in our nation’s clean air laws, that has been confirmed time and again by the United States Supreme Court, and that has been recognized even by those who continue to obstruct climate progress in the courts.  And the agency has a responsibility to exercise that authority through science-based actions to address climate pollution in a way that protects public health and welfare.

In Massachusetts v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court held that EPA had clear authority under the Clean Air Act to address Greenhouse Gas emissions:

[b]ecause greenhouse gases fit well within the Act’s capacious definition of ‘air pollutant.’

             549 U.S. 497, 532 (2007)

The Court continued:

The Clean Air Act’s sweeping definition of “air pollutant” includes “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical . . . substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air . . . . ” § 7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word “any.” Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt “physical [and] chemical  . . . substance[s] which [are] emitted into . . . the ambient air.”  The statute is unambiguous.

             Id. at 528-29 

The Court emphasized that EPA’s responsibility to exercise this authority was grounded in science and the agency’s duty to protect public health and welfare.  In rejecting various policy reasons for inactions, the Court concluded that EPA must move forward with standards if it found climate pollution endangered human health and welfare, noting that:

[T]here is nothing counterintuitive to the notion that EPA can curtail the emission of substances that are putting the global climate out of kilter.

             Id. at 531

In 2011, the Supreme Court directly addressed EPA’s authority to establish carbon pollution standards for existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act – the foundational provisions for Monday’s announcement.

In American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, the Court found:

And we think it equally plain that the Act “speaks directly” to emissions of carbon dioxide from the defendants’ plants.

Section 111 of the Act directs the EPA Administrator to list “categories of stationary sources” that “in [her] judgment . . . caus[e], or contribut[e] significantly to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” §7411(b)(1)(A). Once EPA lists a category, the agency must establish standards of performance for emission of pollutants from new or modified sources within that category. §7411(b)(1)(B); see also§7411(a)(2). And, most relevant here, §7411(d) then requires regulation of existing sources within the same category.7 For existing sources, EPA issues emissions guidelines, see 40 C. F. R. §60.22, .23 (2009); in compliance with those guidelines and subject to federal oversight, the States then issue performance standards for stationary sources within their jurisdiction, §7411(d)(1).

             131 S. Ct. 2527, 2537 (2011) 

Our nation’s highest court, then, has twice affirmed EPA’s authority to address climate destabilizing pollution from the power sector.  First, in Massachusetts, by confirming that greenhouse gases fall squarely within the Clean Air Act’s definition of “air pollutant,” and then again in American Electric Power, where the Court found that the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to address carbon pollution from existing power plants using the precise provision that is basis for EPA’s action this Monday.

EPA’s authority in this area is so unequivocal that, in an oral argument before the Supreme Court in a recent case concerning a distinct, separate climate program, the attorney arguing for industry challengers conceded:

I think most critically, Your Honor, [EPA’s authority] includes the new source performance standards program of Section 111 that this Court discussed in Connecticut v. AEP. And this is a very important point, because this case is not about whether EPA can regulate greenhouse gases from stationary sources. This Court held that it could under this program in Section 11 [sic].

            (see Supreme Court transcript page 22).

EPA has determined that six greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride – endanger the health and welfare of current and future generations.  And this determination has been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court declined to review it – meaning it is firmly the law of the land.

This endangerment determination along with EPA’s manifest authority under the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions – twice affirmed by the Supreme Court – form an unshakeable legal foundation for EPA’s action to cut carbon pollution from power plants,  the nation’s single largest source of carbon pollution and one of the largest in the world.

Moving forward swiftly to address climate pollution could not be more urgent to protect the health of our communities and families.

Posted in Clean Power Plan, News / Read 4 Responses

Why you only get 25% of the electricity you pay for

By EDF Blogs / Published: May 29, 2014

By Ronny Sandoval

What would you say if I told you that about three-quarters of what you spend on electricity every month is wasted? Considering that Americans spend about $350 billion on electricity annually, I hope you’ll find this as shocking as I do.

From generation to delivery to consumption, inefficiencies at every step of electricity’s journey add up to a lot of waste. Fortunately, these same conditions present us with opportunities to substantially reduce inefficiencies and their associated economic, social, and environmental impacts.

Generation: Energy is wasted at the source

Today, the majority of the electricity produced in the United States originates from fossil fuels, including coal and natural gas. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, these plants are only about 33 percent efficient, and “two-thirds of the energy in the fuel is lost — vented as heat — at most power plants in the United States.”

There are limits to what can be done to address this problem as this loss is largely due to the thermal process of large power plants, since heat is a by-product of this sort of generation and it has to be released somehow.

Some plants, however, achieve higher efficiencies by capturing wasted heat energy and putting it to meaningful work, raising the total efficiency to somewhere within the 60-80 percent (or greater) range.

One example of this kind of technology is combined heat and power, which burns a fossil-fuel like natural gas to make electricity, but reroutes the heat generated as a by-product (often vented out of the chimney stack) back to the customer’s premise and used to heat hot water or a space.

Today, this technology is mostly limited to large buildings or complexes, but it has proven to be very successful in places such as New York City, where these types of structures are prevalent.

Delivery: Energy is lost en route to homes and businesses

Adding to our energy loss, another seven percent of the electricity that’s ultimately generated is later lost in the delivery path to homes and businesses.

Available and emerging technologies show us it doesn’t have to be this way. “Voltage optimization’” technologies and strategies, for example, can lower the amount of energy lost in the delivery process while also reducing the associated environmental impacts.

Consumption: Old appliances, bad habits = a little more waste

Try to think of all the old and inefficient appliances and equipment that use more electricity than is necessary. For example, incandescent (traditional) light bulbs can use four times as much electricity as energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. Most of the energy these traditional bulbs use generates heat, not light.

Similarly, inefficient refrigerators can use 15 percent more electricity (or much more depending on the age) than efficient alternatives.

Now, also think of all the things that are simply left on or running that don’t have to be (lights, computers, TVs, phone chargers, etc.) and you really start to get a picture of the amount of inefficiency based on our ingrained habits of consumption.

Smart solutions

But don’t be discouraged! Abundant and cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities mean we can reduce this waste – and ultimately pollution. By simply improving the way we use energy at home and at work we can realize big energy savings across the whole electricity supply chain.

When an unused appliance is powered off, the electric system doesn’t just save on the energy the appliance would have used, it also avoids all the extra energy (and greenhouse gas emissions) the system would have generated to compensate for its inefficiencies.

Fortunately, more and more solutions (such as “smart’ thermostats” and “smart” power strips) are providing consumers with the tools to automate and maximize energy savings at home.

Commercial buildings can also benefit from these intelligent energy control devices by implementing operating schedules, occupancy sensors, and other forms of building automation to ensure that lighting or heating and cooling systems aren’t running when not needed.

Abundant and cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities mean we can reduce this waste.

Collectively, we can improve this part of the supply chain through an increasing variety of actions – such as using more efficient appliances, energy conservation, and the automation of energy use.

A rare opportunity

I think it’s safe to say that most Americans would like to see more bang for their electricity buck, but the argument for efficiency is not just a financial one. Energy efficiency has the added benefit of protecting our finite natural resources and reducing harmful, greenhouse gas emissions that affect our health.

Much of the inefficiencies in the electric system are a product of decisions made along the supply chain and the policies and incentives that drive them.

The U.S. is expected to spend about $2 trillion over the next two decades to replace our aging, inefficient and polluting energy infrastructure. This presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revolutionize how we make, move, manage, and use electricity.

It’s an opportunity we cannot afford to waste, the way we’ve been wasting so much electricity.

This blog originally appeared on EDF Voices

Posted in Clean Power Plan, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Read 4 Responses

Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act — Cooperative Federalism and Performance-Based Standards

By Megan Ceronsky / Published: May 20, 2014

dv067014One year ago this June, President Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop Carbon Pollution Standards for existing power plants — a key component of his Climate Action Plan.

The President charged EPA with launching the effort “through direct engagement with States, as they will play a central role in establishing and implementing standards for existing power plants.”

Congress laid the groundwork for this dynamic federal-state collaboration in 1970 when it provided for national environmental performance standards for sectors that are major sources of dangerous air pollution.

Under this program  (Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act) EPA identifies the “best system of emission reduction” available to address dangerous air pollution from existing pollution sources through performance standards, adopted after public notice and comment, called “emission guidelines.” 1

EPA quantifies the emission reductions that can be achieved using this “best system” — and that becomes the performance benchmark for state plans which implement and enforce standards of performance for the existing sources of pollution in each state. 2

Congress provided for state plans to be submitted to EPA to evaluate whether the plan provides for emission reductions that are equivalent to or greater than those under the “best system.” 3 Congress made clear that states are not required to use the particular system identified by EPA — they have the flexibility to use other systems, tailored to their state, so long as they achieve an equivalent or greater level of pollution reduction.

Under the timeline set out by President Obama, EPA will propose guidelines for emissions from existing power plants at the beginning of June, and finalize them by June 2015.

Consistent with the long-standing implementation timetable under this Clean Air Act program, states will submit their plans to implement and enforce standards by the end of June 2016.

Section 111(d) standards have long been effective in addressing dangerous air pollution from a variety of source categories and can be designed to provide a flexible and cost-effective framework for reducing carbon pollution from power plants.

For decades, section 111(d) has provided the foundation for pollution cuts from major sources of air pollution. Toward the end of the 1970s, EPA and the states put section 111(d) to work, publishing and implementing emission guidelines for fluorides from phosphate fertilizer plants (1977),4 sulfuric acid mist from sulfuric acid plants (1977),5 sulfur from kraft pulp mills (1979),6 and fluoride from primary aluminum plants (1980).7

These emissions guidelines and the state-devised standards implementing them would achieve dramatic reductions of harmful air pollutants, eliminating 75 percent of overall nationwide fluoride emissions from phosphate fertilizer plants,8 almost 80 percent of sulfuric acid emissions from an uncontrolled sulfuric acid plant,9 82 percent of overall nationwide total reduced sulfur from kraft pulp mills,10 and up to 78 percent of fluoride emissions from the primary aluminum industry.11

The pollution from fossil fueled power plants, one of the single largest sources of dangerous air pollution in our nation, has been subject of clean air standards under section 111 since the advent of the modern Clean Air Act in 1970.12 National standards of performance under section 111 have applied to newly constructed power plants and existing plants that are revamped and reconstructed.

The flexibility that the Clean Air Act provides in establishing and implementing standards of performance for existing sources under section 111(d) is well suited for the regulation of carbon pollution from fossil fuel power plants.

Congress created a framework under section 111(d) to address pollution from existing power plants that can be flexible and expansive in scope where such a framework could be more effective in addressing emissions.

The statutory language — “best system of emission reduction” — is broad, and not defined in the statute. The ordinary meaning of the word is expansive — “a complex unity formed of many often diverse parts subject to a common plan or serving a common purpose.”13 Throughout the Clean Air Act, Congress has used the word “system” to describe innovative, flexible regulatory approaches such as the acid rain emissions cap and allowance trading program, and marketable permits.14

Indeed, the legislative history of the section over the years is consonant with this broad reading of the term “system,” especially for section 111(d).

When Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1977, it altered the definition of “standard of performance” as applied to new sources in order to require new sources to deploy the “best technological system” of emission reduction. But, pointedly, it left the corresponding definition for existing sources intact15 and even explicitly confirmed that “systems” of emission reduction for existing sources were “not necessarily technological.”16

In 1990, Congress abandoned this special limitation for new sources and reverted to the broad, unified definition of section 111 “standards of performance” for both new and existing sources.17

Thus, EPA can deploy a systemic approach to reducing carbon pollution from power plants, looking beyond each individual source in isolation to find the “best,” most cost-effective system for reducing pollution.

It has done so several times before. In the 1995 emission guidelines for municipal waste combustors, EPA authorized states to create averaging and trading programs in reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides.18

In the context of greenhouse gas emissions, which do not have local effects, an averaging approach allows cost-effective emission reduction opportunities to be captured while rigorous overall emission reduction targets are achieved.

Not only may EPA allow averaging of emissions among existing sources as part of the “best system of emission reduction,” but it can also consider pollution-reduction measures that are implemented beyond the source and secure reductions in emissions at the source.

For example, in the 1997 emission guidelines for hospital/medical/infectious waste incinerators, EPA required state plans to include waste management plans, where feasible, to eliminate part of the waste stream going to the incinerator that would produce harmful emissions.19 In that context, part of the “best system of emission reduction” involved measures taken well outside of the source’s boundaries that could reduce harmful emissions from the sources.

EPA could take a similar approach to address carbon pollution from existing power plants — as deploying demand side energy efficiency and renewable energy can be some of the most effective means of reducing harmful emissions from existing plants while capturing the greatest co-benefits in cutting utility bills, creating jobs, making state economies less dependent on price fluctuations in fossil fuels, and stimulating local economies.

States have extensive experience in implementing emission guidelines and other system-wide approaches under the Clean Air Act, and are well positioned for developing and implementing plans to address carbon pollution from existing power plants under Section 111(d).

The next two parts of this series will look at the impressive achievements of states and power companies across the country in in cutting carbon pollution through flexible, cost-effective, demonstrated policies that are reducing utilization of high-emitting plants, expanding renewable energy capacity, and improving the efficiency with which we use energy.

Through the dynamic state-federal collaboration provided by section 111(d), the Carbon Pollution Standards for existing power plants will build on this foundation and help us make further progress along the path toward a cleaner, safer energy future.

  1. 40 C.F.R. § 60.22(b) ↩
  2. Id. § 60.24. ↩
  3. Id.; 42 U.S.C. § 7411(a); id. § 7411(d)(2). ↩
  4. Phosphate Fertilizer Plants, Final Guideline Document Availability, 42 Fed. Reg. 12,022 (Mar. 1, 1977). ↩
  5. Emission Guideline for Sulfuric Acid Mist, 42 Fed. Reg. 55,796 (Oct. 18, 1977). ↩
  6. Kraft Pulp Mills; Final Guideline Document; Availability, 44 Fed. Reg. 29,828 (May 22, 1979). ↩
  7. Primary Aluminum Plants; Availability of Final Guideline Document, 45 Fed. Reg. 26,294 (Apr. 17, 1980). ↩
  8. Final Guideline Document: Control of Fluoride Emissions from Existing Phosphate Fertilizer Plants, Doc. No. EPA-450/2-77-005, at 1-7 (Mar. 1977). ↩
  9. Final Guideline Document: Control of Sulfuric Acid Mist Emissions from Existing Sulfuric Acid Production Units, Doc. No. EPA-450/2-77-019, at 8-2 (Sept. 1977). ↩
  10. Kraft Pulping, “Control of TRS Emissions from Existing Mills,” Doc. No. EPA-450/2-78-003b, at 1-6 (Mar. 1979). ↩
  11. Primary Aluminum: Guidelines for Control of Fluoride Emissions from Existing Primary Aluminum Plants, Doc. No. EPA-450/2-78-049b, at 125 tbl. 1-7 (Dec. 1979). ↩
  12. Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources, 36 Fed. Reg. 24,876 (Dec. 23, 1971). ↩
  13. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2322 (1967). ↩
  14. 42 U.S.C. § 7511a(g)(4)(A); id. § 7651b; id. § 7651c. ↩
  15. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, Pub. L. No. 95-95, § 109(c)(1)(A), 91 Stat. 685, 699-700. ↩
  16. H.R. Rep. No. 95-564, at 129 (1977) (Conf. Rep.). ↩
  17. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-549, § 403(a), 104 Stat. 2399, 2631. ↩
  18. 40 C.F.R § 60.33b(d)(2). ↩
  19. Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emission Guidelines for Existing Sources: Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerators, 62 Fed. Reg. 48,348, 48,359 (Sept. 15, 1997) (codified at 40 C.F.R. §§ 60.35e, 60.55c). ↩
Posted in Clean Power Plan, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Read 1 Response

Soot Pollution Limits Unanimously Upheld in Court, Continuing Clean Air Victory Streak

By Elena Craft, PhD / Published: May 16, 2014

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) particulate matter (soot) pollution standard, ruling that EPA’s decision to strengthen the standard in 2012 was firmly grounded in science and the law. The ruling also upheld EPA’s new requirement that states install air quality monitors near heavy traffic roads, where soot pollution levels can spike. The court’s decision is the latest in a string of legal victories for critical health protections on air pollution.

When fossil fuels are burned in an automobile or power plant, they release soot pollution, very fine, ashy particles less than one tenth the width of a human hair. These particles are so small that the air can carry them for long distances. When inhaled, soot particles penetrate deep into the lungs, where they can cross into the bloodstream via the path normally taken by inhaled oxygen. Exposure to soot pollution can inflame and alter our blood vessels, cutting off the oxygen supply to our heart and brain, leading to a heart attack, stroke, or other serious cardiac event.

The Clean Air Act mandates that EPA revisit its standards on criteria air pollutants – like soot – every five years, so that clean air standards can keep pace with the latest understanding of health science. Since EPA established its 2006 soot standard, hundreds of scientific studies have shown that particle pollution could cause adverse health effects—even in cities that met EPA’s established limits. Based on this information, in 2012, EPA strengthened its soot pollution standard to protect public health. Furthermore, EPA called for states to implement roadside air quality monitors to ensure the standards would likewise protect individuals exposed to significant near-road emissions.

The National Association of Manufacturers and the Utility Air Resources group, a coalition of large power companies and coal companies, filed legal challenges to EPA’s new soot standards, arguing that the 2006 standard was sufficient to protect public health. But the science doesn’t lie. In the D.C. Circuit Court’s unanimous decision, Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote:

Here, we can be brief: Petitioners have not identified any way in which EPA jumped the rails of reasonableness in examining the science. EPA offered reasoned explanations for how it approached and weighed the evidence, and why the scientific evidence supported revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

EPA was reasonable in their interpretation of the science—the polluting companies, on the other hand, could not present a credible argument against the updated soot pollution standards, or the need for roadside air quality monitors.

This important victory is critical to protect our families and communities from harmful soot pollution, and it is clear that EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act stands up to both legal and scientific scrutiny.

This post was adapted from EDF’s Texas Clean Air Matters Blog

Posted in Cars and Pollution, Clean Air Act, Health / Read 3 Responses