GHG emissions aren’t the only target of the administration’s deregulatory agenda. Pollution reduction and environmental waste management are in the crosshairs. This includes the regulation of highly toxic air pollutants. In 2015, the EPA established new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). These standards targeted mercury, lead, and other pollutants released by power plants. The current EPA repealed these standards, leading to measurable increases in air pollution. However, the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and a coalition of advocacy groups are challenging this repeal. The NRDC summarizes its arguments in a press release:
“Since the Trump administration gave the country’s dirtiest coal plants a free pass, sulfur dioxide emissions have increased 18 percent nationally and neurotoxic mercury emissions have risen 9 percent. The sulfur dioxide spike was the second-largest single-year jump by percentage since the EPA began publishing this data 30 years ago.
Today’s lawsuit also challenges the EPA’s rollback of real-time continuous emissions monitoring at power plants, which would have given communities accurate real-time data on the pollution they’re breathing and a stronger tool for enforcing compliance. The repeal violates the Clean Air Act, ignores the scientific record, and abandons safeguards that protect communities living near coal plants and downwind of their pollution.”
This challenge may have impacts on climate policy and vice versa. Another lawsuit is currently ongoing challenging the EPA’s repeal of its 2009 GHG endangerment finding. If either of these cases establishes that the EPA has an obligation to regulate known hazardous air pollutants, then it would set precedent applicable to the other.
Our members can learn more about ESG litigation here.
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