Environmental and public health groups sued the Obama administration today for postponing a stricter limit for smog-forming pollution in September.
The groups, which include the American Lung Association and Environmental Defense Fund, said in the lawsuit that the decision to scrap the tougher regulations violated the law and did not protect the public’s health. Their suit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“The rejection of stronger standards was illegal and irresponsible in our view,” said David Baron, staff attorney at the environmental law firm Earthjustice, in a statement. “Instead of protecting people’s lungs as the law requires, this administration based its decision on politics, leaving tens of thousands of Americans at risk of sickness and suffering.”
The Obama administration proposed in January 2010 a ground-level ozone standard of between 60 and 70 parts per billion, down from Bush-era standard of 75 parts per billion. Advisers to the president had said the Bush-era rule wasn’t strong enough to protect public welfare. A draft EPA recently released of what was supposed to be the final rule showed the EPA had selected 70 parts per billion.
But on Sept. 2, President Obama announced he was withdrawing the ozone standards until 2013, winning the praises of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and Republicans in Congress, who were concerned that complying with the rule would cost up to $90 billion a year.
The decision angered environmental and health groups, which said the tougher standards for the smog component would save up to 12,000 lives a year. The groups were expected to sue, as the ALA pledged soon after Obama’s announcement that it would revive its suit over the Bush-era standards.
The same environmental groups sued the George W. Bush administration in 2008, because they felt ozone standards issued that year were too weak to protect public health. They withdrew the suit in 2009, when the Obama administration said it would consider toughening the Bush standards.
The EPA has said it will implement the Bush-era standards for now and reconsider tougher ones in 2013, when it must do a review required under the Clean Air Act.
“I did not support asking state and local governments to begin implementing a new standard that will soon be reconsidered,” Obama said at the time.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said she respects the president’s decision, though she once called the Bush-era standard “not legally defensible.”
The administration has also said it will continue upholding other Clean Air Act standards, including rules for reducing toxic pollution from power plants. Utilities and states are challenging the new regulations in court, and Republicans have pushed legislation to delay and weaken the rules.
