Court orders EPA to meet Texas haze deadline, calls out Scott Pruitts stall tactics

[riversedge]

Source: thinkprogress




"Cooperative federalism" has had plenty of time to take hold, court argues.
Mark Hand
Sep 1, 2017, 10:21 am




A federal court denied a motion Thursday to allow the Environmental Protection Agency 15 more months to complete a plan to comply with Clean Air Act standards for reducing air pollution in Texas. The court issued its ruling a week before the September 9 deadline for Texas and the EPA to have a regional haze plan in place.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on August 18 to extend the deadline to December 31, 2018, so that the agency could decide whether to accept a state regional haze plan or to impose a federal plan for Texas. The agency’s Regional Haze Rule requires states to develop plans to clean up pollution and improve air quality at national parks and wilderness areas. If the states fail to act, the EPA will step in with its own plan.

The court’s decision said the EPA has given Texas tremendous leeway in developing a state implementation plan to comply with the rule. And now under Pruitt’s leadership, the EPA wants to let Texas off the hook again in meeting statutory deadlines. Citing “well-founded objections” by environmental groups, the court ruled that the Pruitt EPA “must abide by its obligations to promulgate a federal implementation plan” by the September 9 deadline.


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“The court made the right decision today by smacking down Scott Pruitt’s attempt to make the people of Texas and his home state of Oklahoma wait any longer for a plan to clean up dangerous and ugly air pollution,” Chrissy Mann, a campaign representative with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, said Thursday in a statement. “Dirty Texas coal plants have polluted parks and communities across the region for far too long, and it’s past time for those coal plants to be cleaned up.”

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Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/court-orders-epa-to-meet-texas-haze-deadline-20bdbccb3187/

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I imagine, Texas will come up with some excuse not to comply.

Link to tweet

Don Khan? @khndnky 38m38 minutes ago
Replying to @thinkprogress

We had haze hearings a number of years ago, but the state of Texas gave those who spoke out lip service, called us "noise". Children suffer.
0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
Randy Tomlinson? @RandallLTomlins 44m44 minutes ago
Replying to @thinkprogress @GloriaHardie

Bravo!
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes

[elleng]

1. 'The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was not persuaded.

“This is not the sort of significant change in circumstance that would warrant relief,” the court said.

Texas has been under the statutory obligation to comply with the Clean Air Act since at least 2007, and the EPA has been working with Texas to meet the requirement for a decade, the court said.

“So there has been quite a period of time during which ‘cooperative federalism’ could take hold,” the court noted. Federal statutes mandate that the federal government must step in if a state’s submissions are late or insufficient, it explained.'

[Maraya1969]

2. There is a special place in Hell reserved for Pruit and companies that fight against

regulations to clean the air all in the name of more money for themselves.

Think of all the toxins that they have zero qualms about pumping into the air. They don't even care if their own children have to breathe it.

[SergeStorms]

3. That's because......

they believe god is going to step in a fix everything when "the rapture" comes. So it's no big deal to them. That's what they tell their children and grand-children as well. God's going to fix everything! That's another reason why a nuclear war with Korea or Iran doesn't bother them in the least. It's per-ordained and they all KNOW they're going to be snatched up to heaven when the rapture comes........because they've all been such good christians!

[justhanginon]

4. It is so hard to rate the sleazy, rotten people that trump has

put in his cabinet but this s...head has to rate right up there in the top five. If our country survives this administration, it will take a lifetime to get back to where we were as a nation, a nation certainly not without faults but at least, in the last eight years, trying to be better for both ourselves and our neighbors.

[Dustlawyer]

5. I will keep saying it, This is our politics on Money!!!

The Root Cause of most of our problems.

Let's start a movement specifically for campaign finance reform and publicly Funded Elections!