Description: Challenge to EPA's determination to retain the existing national ambient air quality standards for ozone.
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New York v. EPA
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 02/01/2024 Order Download Motion for voluntary remand without vacatur granted. D.C. Circuit Granted EPA Request for Voluntary Remand of Challenges to 2020 Decision to Retain Ozone Standards. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) request for voluntary remand of challenges to EPA’s 2020 determination to retain the existing national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone. EPA contended, and no party objected, that remand was appropriate because EPA had initiated a full review of the ozone NAAQS that would incorporate reconsideration of the 2020 determination. Although the 2020 determination, ensuing litigation, and full review of the NAAQS do not directly implicate greenhouse gases and climate change, the nonprofit group Energy Policy Advocates filed an amicus brief in 2021 contending that the challenges to the 2020 determination were part of a coordinated “backdoor” effort by EPA and the petitioners to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The group also argued that the lawsuits also were motivated by a desire to provide a basis for private plaintiffs’ arguments in climate nuisance suits against private parties that the Clean Air Act did not displace their claims. 01/03/2024 Motion Download Unopposed motion for voluntary remand without vacatur filed. 10/29/2021 Motion Download Motion to govern further proceedings filed by Texas and five other states. 02/22/2021 Amicus Brief Download Brief filed by Energy Policy Advocates as amicus curiae in support of respondent. Nonprofit Group Charged that Ozone NAAQS Challenge Was “Backdoor” Effort to Restrict Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The nonprofit Energy Policy Advocates filed an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of EPA’s determination to retain the existing national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone. Energy Policy Advocates stated in its brief that it had obtained public records that showed that the petitioners and EPA sought to set in motion a coordinated “backdoor” effort to vacate the Trump EPA’s determination and adopt a secondary ozone NAAQS “which transmogrifies the NAAQS program to regulate non-criteria pollutant CO2/GHGs, after activists were frustrated in their pursuits through proper channels.” Energy Policy Advocates also contended that the records it obtained showed an alternative motive for challenging the ozone NAAQS: “to assist private plaintiffs against private parties in climate ‘public nuisance’ litigation by obtaining a declaration, effectively, that the predominant ‘nuisance’ claims are not in fact displaced by EPA regulatory authority under American Electric Power v. Connecticut.”