2nd Circuit Backs NRDC's Push For EPA To Release Vehicle GHG Model

摘要

In a win for environmentalists, a federal appeals court is ordering EPA to publicly release its computer model that could highlight faulty assumptions in the agency's rollback of vehicle greenhouse gas standards, saying the model is not "deliberative" data protected from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It is not immediately clear how quickly the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) — the two groups that sued EPA—will obtain the model. But representatives of the groups are already suggesting the data could raise further questions about the March 31 rollback rule that already shows net costs to the public under many of the Trump administration's own assumptions. "The Trump administration has been trying to hide the real impacts of its plan to gut clean car standards," NRDC attorney Pete Huffman says in a statement in response to the April 1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in NRDC and EDF v. EPA.