Last week, I wrote about the EPA’s efforts to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding for GHG emissions. In that blog, I wrote that major legal challenges to the rescission will emerge once the final rule is published. Now that litigation has emerged. A variety of plaintiffs came together to file a challenge to the EPA’s final rule. A press release from one of the plaintiffs, the Natural Resources Defense Council, summarizes the litigation:
“In 2007, the Supreme Court held in Massachusetts v. EPA that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases unambiguously are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and told the EPA to determine, based on the science, if that pollution endangers human health and welfare. The EPA made that determination in 2009, which led to new standards for vehicles. It built on that finding when issuing other standards. In its repeal, the Trump EPA is rehashing legal arguments that the Supreme Court already considered and rejected in Massachusetts v. EPA.”
At this juncture, only a Petition for Review is filed with the District Court for the District of Columbia. This petition contains no substantive arguments and only serves to kick off a legal challenge to an agency rule-making. Further into the litigation, we’ll get a deeper look into the plaintiffs’ arguments.
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