ACSBlog: The Blog of the American Constitution Society

A Bush administration effort to limit the Clean Air Act was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The appeals court’s 2-1 decision found that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not prohibit states and localities from enforcing stricter pollution monitoring standards on factories, power plants, oil refineries and other industrial companies that emit pollutants. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Aug. 19 decision “marks the latest instance in which a federal court has rejected the approach to regulating harmful emissions taken by the administration of President George W. Bush.”

The appeals court in Sierra Club v. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the EPA regulation on states and localities violated a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires monitoring of emissions to ensure they do not exceed pollution limits. The Court called the federal act “a complex statute with a clear objective: it enlists EPA and state and local environmental authorities in a common effort to create a permit program for most stationary sources of air pollution. Fundamental to this scheme is the mandate that ‘[e]ach permit … shall set forth … monitoring … requirements to assure compliance with the permit terms and conditions.”

An EPA spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that it is reviewing the decision and “will determine an appropriate course of action.” Earthjustice, one of the nonprofit advocacy organizations, which challenged the EPA regulation, lauded the appeals court decision, saying it would “give states back the tools they need to hold polluters accountable and help ensure that everyone has clean, healthy air to breathe.”

For additional, in-depth analysis of environmental law and policy watch a panel discussion from the 2007 ACS National Convention here.