Environmental Groups Sue Bush Administration Over Clean Air Rollbacks
March 3, 2003
CONTACTS:
Clean Air Task Force: Ann Weeks or Jonathan Lewis: 617-292-0234
Alabama Environmental Council: Kelley Hall: 205-322-3126
Clean Air Council: Michael Fiorentino: 215-567-4004
Group Against Smog and Pollution: Bill Luneburg: 412-741-8525
Michigan Environmental Council: David Gard: 517-487-9539
The Ohio Environmental Council: Kurt Waltzer: 614-487-7506
Scenic Hudson: Warren Reiss: 845-743-4440
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy: Ulla-Britt Reeves or Steven Smith: 865-637-6055
Washington, D.C. - March 3, 2003 Seven Midwestern and Southeastern environmental organizations filed suit today, represented by lawyers from the Clean Air Task Force, in the U.S. Court of Appeals here, challenging the federal EPA’s rollback of clean air rules affecting industrial facilities and coal- and oil- fired power plants. The groups are located in areas of the country particularly afflicted by dirty air emissions from older industrial and utility sources.
EPA’s rules significantly erode the legal requirement that these sources upgrade to modern pollution control standards when they make significant plant improvements. The seven groups on Friday also filed, as part of a coalition of national environmental groups, an administrative petition with EPA requesting that the Agency reconsider its final rules.
“The EPA rules are patently illegal - they are directly contrary to the Clean Air Act’s clear requirement that older industrial plants must clean up or be replaced eventually by cleaner emitting facilities,” said Ann Weeks of the Clean Air Task Force, counsel to the groups.
The groups filing suit today are located in areas currently experiencing dirty air episodes, including summer ozone levels exceeding 1997 federal ozone standards. “Ozone smog makes it harder for all of us to breathe - it causes chest pains and asthma attacks and other very serious health problems. Our kids playing outdoors, the elderly with sensitive lungs, and asthmatics are at greatest risk from breathing bad air,” said Ulla Reeves, Regional Air Director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “These rules make breathing easy a pipe dream for those of us living in heavily polluted areas and that is simply wrong.”
A recent study by Abt Associates reports that up to 170,000 asthma attacks and 9,000 deaths yearly result from particulate matter emitted by about 50 coal- fired power plants in the Midwest and Southeast alone. These plants are but a small subset of the facilities potentially let off the clean- up hook in the future by the challenged EPA rules.
“These rollbacks deal a serious blow to public health in our states,” said Kurt Waltzer, Clean Air Program Coordinator for the Ohio Environmental Council. “We have no choice but to add our voices to those of the state attorneys general who have already filed suit.”
The states of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia already ha ve filed challenges to these rules.
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