Washington Joins Coalition of States Fighting Scott Pruitt's Rollback of Vehicle Emissions Standards

But let's not forget that Ferguson is fighting against local tribes in the US Supreme Court over another serious environmental issue: salmon. JOE MABEL/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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If Trump administration officials did something, you can probably assume Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued them for it. This time, Ferguson has filed a lawsuit with 16 other states over the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to get rid of vehicle emissions standards for cars and some trucks built between 2022 and 2025.

This is Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson's 25th lawsuit against the Trump administration, and his second against Scott Pruitt's Environmental Protection Agency—third if you count the time he intervened in another lawsuit against the EPA for delaying the regulation of oil and gas facility emissions. But in this respect, Ferguson is still lagging behind his lawsuit's intended target. As former Attorney General for the state of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times.

Scott Pruitt, who just had two high-ranking officials resign while he faces ethics investigations from the agency's inspector general, announced the decision to undo the Obama emissions standards in early April, saying the standards were "too high" and "didn't comport with reality."

Vehicle emissions standards are an issue close to Ferguson's nerdy heart. In 2016, a consumer protection lawsuit from Ferguson and other states' AGs forced Volkswagen to cough up $26.1 million in restitution over its "clean diesel" emissions fraud.

But at the same time Ferguson is suing the EPA, he's also defending a serious environmental and indigenous rights lawsuit of his own at the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the US Supreme Court heard arguments as to why Washington should, as Washington tribes claim, pay for fixing the road culverts that block salmon from reaching their spawning grounds. Tribes are fighting for their treaty rights to fish in local waters. Ferguson, let's remember, is fighting to not have to pay for that.