Three court decisions handed down in January have invalidated recent revisions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards and procedures. The rulings relate to:
- A trio of ozone-emission standards that the agency enacted in 2018
- A science review and confidential data standard enacted in January 2020
- A 2019 repeal of the 2015 Clean Power Plan
Ozone Standard
Several environmental action groups, including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, sued EPA over
a final rule issued in November 2018 that were intended to give flexibility to states in providing data to prove attainment of the standards. On January 29, a Washington D.C. court agreed with the groups that these changes provided an illegal loophole to the 1990 Clean Air Act enacted by Congress.
Science Review
At the request of President Biden, a Montana federal judge on Monday vacated a
January 16th EPA rule limiting which scientific studies the agency can use in crafting public health protections. The rule would have assigned less weight to studies built on medical histories and other confidential data from human subjects where the subject’s underlying personal information was not revealed.
Clean Power
On January 19, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the 2019
Repeal of the Clean Power Plan. The original 2015
Clean Power Plan had established nationwide limits on carbon pollution from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants.
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