Several aspects of a Trump-era EPA policy were found to have let states skirt rules aimed at cutting harmful emissions.
Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner train rumbles over a trestle at Gaviota State Park, California, around sunset in September 2020. (Courthouse News photo / Chris Marshall)
WASHINGTON (CN) — The D.C. Circuit agreed with conservationists Friday that the Clean Air Act contained several illegal loopholes that let states manipulate clean air requirements.
Since 1990, the Clean Air Act has required states to demonstrate that they have met emissions-reduction milestones by fixed deadlines. Under a new standard the Environmental Protection Agency introduced in 2018, however, states did not need to show actual data. Instead, they could choose to prove their emission-reduction compliance by showing a few compliance measures from the plan that they have implemented.