A EPA has exceeded its authority in the Cross State Air Pollution Rule, a federal district court ruled Aug. 21 in vacating the major power plant air pollution rule.
The rule is also known as the Transport Rule.
"EPA's Transport Rule exceeds the agency's statutory authority in two independent respects," wrote Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the decision on an appeal by many states and organizations of the July 2011 rule that would limit power plant emissions in 28 states that are transported downwind to other states.
The rule violates the Clean Air Act, or CAA, by requiring states to reduce their emissions by more than their own significant contributions to downwind states' nonattainment of air quality standards, according to the decision.
And the agency did not allow states the opportunity, as required by the CAA, to meet their "good neighbor" obligations before imposing its own Federal Implementation Plans.
Judge Thomas Griffith joined Kavanaugh in the decision vacating the rule.
Judge Judith Rogers dissented strongly, writing that the decision disregarded Congressional limits on its own jurisdiction, the text of the CAA and relevant settled precedent.
The result, she wrote, is "a redesign of Congress's vision of cooperative federalism between the States and the federal government in implementing the CAA based on the court's own notions of absurdity and logic that are unsupported by a factual record."
The decision may be read here.
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