Court blocks EPA from easing rules on air pollution

[Judi Lynn]

March 18, 2006, 9:54AM
Court blocks EPA from easing rules on air pollution
The agency had sought exemptions for older plants


By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
New York Times

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment.

Ruling in favor of a coalition of states and environmental advocacy groups, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declared that the "plain language" of the act required a stricter approach. The court has primary jurisdiction in challenges to federal regulations.

The ruling by a three-judge panel was the court's second decision in less than a year in a pair of closely related cases involving the administration's interpretations of a complex section of the Clean Air Act. Unlike its ruling last summer, when the court largely upheld the EPA's approach against multi-pronged challenges from industry, state governments and environmental groups, the ruling on Friday was a defeat for the agency and for industry, and a victory for the states and their environmentalist allies.

In the earlier case, a panel including two of the three judges who ruled on Friday decided that the agency had acted reasonably in 2002, when it issued a rule changing how pollution would be measured, effectively loosening the strictures on companies making changes to their equipment and operations.
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