Former EPA Official Details Path For Agency To Defend Existing Utility NSPS

摘要

A former top EPA enforcement official is detailing a path for EPA to defend its pending new source performance standard (NSPS) climate rule for existing utilities from likely legal arguments that the Clean Air Act prohibits the rule, while also suggesting how EPA could defend crediting off-site greenhouse gas (GHG) cuts in the NSPS. Adam Kushner, the former director of EPA's Office of Civil Enforcement and now with law firm Hogan Lovells, says that the agency can build the defense by using lessons from a prior legal dispute during the Bush administration over EPA's power to regulate sources under the NSPS program in section 11 1(d) of the air law if the agency already regulates the same category of industrial emissions source under the law's section 112 air toxics program.