Clean Energy Now

Federal Appeals Court Orders EPA to Review Pollution Limit

WASHINGTON—(FEBRUARY 24, 2009) A federal court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider limits on particulate air pollution, marking another victory for states and environmental groups which have challenged Bush administration environmental rules favored by industry.

"We're back to square one on many of the major air-quality decision that were made in the last eight years," said Peter Glaser, a Washington attorney who specializes in environmental regulation.

The ruling by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the latest in a series of judicial rulings that force the EPA to revisit air-quality standards set during the Bush administration. Environmental groups and some states had criticized the Bush EPA for not doing more to curb various pollutants -- curbs which businesses had argued would raise their costs of doing business.

The EPA is required to review air-quality standards periodically using the latest scientific information. The agency last looked at its standards for particulate pollution in 2006 and decided to keep the annual standards the same. Particulate pollution is the term for a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets that form either directly from a source, such as construction sites, or smokestacks, or in reactions in the atmosphere of chemicals such as sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides that are emitted power plants and automobiles.

In its ruling, the appeals court stopped short of striking the standards down, but said that the Bush administration didn't explain adequately why the existing annual level protects public health, including vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly.

The court's decision came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed a bid by electric utilities to salvage a Bush Administration rule governing mercury emissions that industry favored. The high court decision means that rule won't go into effect, leaving the Obama Administration more latitude to revisit the issue.

Last summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down the Bush administration's signature air-quality program, the Clean Air Interstate Rule -- one of the few Bush administration efforts applauded by the environmental community. The regulation, announced in 2005 and covering more than two dozen states, sought to slash emissions that contribute to respiratory illnesses by instituting a "cap and trade" system in which companies that exceed their emissions caps can buy allowances from companies that do not. The court has since reinstated the rule to give the EPA a chance to fix flaws found by the court in its earlier decision.