EPA Fights Broad Industry Legal Attacks On Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Rule

摘要

Epa and states supportive of the agency's vehicle greenhouse gas (GHG) rule have filed final legal briefs in a suit filed by industry and other states opposed to the rule, rejecting claims that EPA wrongly concluded that the rule triggers stationary source GHG rules, ignored the resulting costs to stationary sources, and other arguments. Critics of the vehicle rule - setting first-time GHG and fuel economy limits for model year 2012-2016 light duty vehicles - in their final Nov. 28 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also argue that the vehicle regulation was an overreach of an interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA in which the court said that GHGs can be regulated as "air pollutants" under the Clean Air Act. The Obama administration cited the ruling in developing its finding that GHGs endanger human health and welfare. The agency said that issuance of the finding required it to craft the vehicle GHG rules. Under the Clean Air Act, issuance of the vehicle rules also triggered a mandate to regulate stationary source GHGs, EPA says. The agency is targeting stationary sources through its GHG permitting rule and pending sector-specific climate rules.