Foes of Trump ozone standards launch new legal attack

摘要

Environmental and public health groups mounted a fresh assault today on the adequacy of EPA's primaryground-level ozone standard just 18 months after a federal appeals court upheld it as sufficiently protective ofpublic health.The new lawsuit, filed this morning with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, doesn'tspell out grounds for the challenge to the 70 parts per billion standard retained by a rule published by the Trumpadministration in December.But in comments on the draft rule last year, the Appalachian Mountain Club and some of the other 13 plaintiffsargued the threshold should be cut to 60 ppb. The draft "fails to meaningfully engage with the body of evidencethat mandates strengthening the standard, provides no margin of safety, and is the result of a review process rifewith flaws," they wrote at the time. Representing half of the plaintiffs is Earthjustice, which also signed on tothose comments. They're getting an unusually early opening to bring another suit because the Trump EPAproceeded on a fast-track timetable that ended the review years earlier than it would have otherwise wrapped up.