According to environmental advocates who are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's regional haze rule, in 2015 a federal appeals court ruled that the EPA's cross-state air pollution rule "eviscerated" the agency's justification for a related visibility regulation. At issue in the case is a 2012 EPA regulation ( RIN:2060-AR05) which allowed states to use emissions trading under the cross-state rule to fulfill the Clean Air Act's best available retrofit technology requirements under the regional haze program. The program requires power plants to install pollution controls in order to improve visibility in national parks and other federally protected areas.
Environmental groups have argued that the EPA's rule no longer has a "rational basis" due to a 2015 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on the cross-state rule. The court held that the EPA impermissibly over-controlled power plant emissions and remanded those emission budgets back to the EPA. According to environmental groups, the 2015 ruling eviscerated the EPA's rationale for applying best available retrofit technology exemptions to the regional haze rules invalidated state emission budgets upon which the rules relied. The court's disapproval of those emission budgets left the regional haze rule "without a rational basis" because of a fundamental premise of the rule is the existence of valid emissions budgets in the cross-state.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
