States sue Trump's EPA for failing to enforce smog standards

Aamer Madhani | USA TODAY

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia announced Thursday that they filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, claiming failure to enforce smog standards.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that the EPA under President Trump has not designated any areas of the country as having unhealthy air, missing an Oct. 1 deadline to make such rulings. The rules require areas designated as not meeting the requirements to take measures to improve air quality.

The suit was filed by the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency also is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The EPA announced in June that it was giving itself a one-year extension to make such designations as required under the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which were set during the Obama administration.

After the EPA made the announcement, several states and environmental groups petitioned an appellate court to review if the deadline extension by the Trump administration was legal. At that point, the EPA withdrew the extension, but the Oct. 1 deadline to file designations passed without the agency designating any areas of the country for being outside the smog standards, according to the lawsuit.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra charged the EPA was blatantly violating the Clean Air Act by its failure to make designations under the smog standards.

“The California Department of Justice refuses to let the EPA blatantly violate the Clean Air Act,” Becerra said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “We will continue doing everything in our power to ensure that the EPA does what it is supposed to do: protect our environment. Lives can be saved if the EPA implements these standards.”

EPA did not offer a response to a request for comment, saying it was the agency’s policy not to comment on litigation.

The states are asking the federal court to intervene and require EPA to “promptly promulgate all overdue designations by a date certain.”

The agency in a report published during the Obama administration projected the standards on an annual basis would help save 316 to 660 lives, result in 160,000 fewer days of missed school, and net $4.5 billion in health savings.

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