D.C. Circuit Rejects 'Absurd' Air Permit Rule Suit For Missing Filing Deadline

摘要

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has dismissed as time-barred Sierra Club's suit over a 1980 EPA rule on its Clean Air Act permitting program, a case that one judge at oral argument called "absurd" because it was an attempt to upend the decades-old policy by challenging a permit for a waste incinerator. In its unanimous March 4 ruling in Sierra Club de Puerto Rico, et al. v. EPA, a three-judge panel of the court dismisses the environmentalists' lawsuit seeking to overturn the 1980 rule, which further refined the agency's prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) air permit program. The program applies to facilities in areas classed as "nonattainment" with national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for at least one pollutant.