Danielle Murray

January 26, 2007

On December 22, 2006, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the Clean Air Act (CAA) when it weakened pollution control requirements relating to smog. As a result, the EPA's 2004 rules are lifted and the full-force of the previous 1990 standards are reinstated.

The original anti-smog measures were enacted in 1990 and required cities in violation of ozone standards to institute limits on pollution from new and expanded factories and caps on truck and car exhaust. The anti-smog measures were enacted to curb smog in polluted urban areas, which cause asthma, coughing, wheezing and other respiratory health problems. However, in 2004, the EPA adopted rules, which weakened the pollution control requirements.

Many parties filed suite challenging EPA's weakend standards, including Earthjustice (on behalf of the American Lung Foundation and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy), the Clean Air Task Force (on behalf of the Conservation Law Foundation and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy), Louisiana Environmental Network, South Coast Air Quality Management District, and a group of states including Massachusetts, Delaware, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.

In reaction to the Court's decision, John Walke, Director of the Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated "Tens of millions of Americans in the nation's most polluted urban areas will be able to breathe easier because the courts continue to reject this administration's agenda to protect polluters at the expense of the rest of us."

For more information:

Earth Justice Press Release

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/006/smog-rules-illegally-weakened-court-says.html

Court Ruling

http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal_docs/dc-circuit-court-decision-favoring-environmentalists-in-8-hour-ozone-implementation.pdf