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Trumps environmental agenda is crashing into the courts
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2017/8/11/16113348/trump-environmental-agenda-crashing-into-courtsTrump’s environmental agenda is crashing into the courts
Pruitt used to sue the EPA. Now he’s being sued for what he’s doing with it.
Updated by Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna on August 11, 2017 1:40 pm
Donald Trump made clear on the campaign trail that he intends to “get rid of” the Environmental Protection Agency and many of its Obama-era regulations.
And in its first six months, his administration has overturned or halted nearly two dozen environmental policies and significantly backed off enforcement of environmental pollution laws.EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who sued the EPA 14 times in his previous post as attorney general of Oklahoma, has been leading the charge.
But rolling back Obama-era environmental protections is actually not that easy. There are laws that govern how the EPA can change its policies. And the courts are proving to be a considerable obstacle to the Trump agenda.
In June, for example, the EPA announced plans to delay implementation of a 2015 regulation to reduce smog-forming pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes. But then last week, 16 state attorneys general sued the EPA over the delay. A day after the lawsuit was filed, the EPA reversed its earlier announcement and ditched the delay.
“It's unprecedented for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to act with such reckless disregard for the clean air and the clean water laws that he's entrusted to administer, and it's not surprising that actions that are taken with such lawlessness are being {challenged} in court,” Vicki Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, told me.
Several of Pruitt's EPA actions have already been overturned
Other instances when lawsuits have successfully stopped Pruitt’s EPA from reversing environmental regulations include:
In June, the EPA restored a mercury protection rule after being sued by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). They sued after the EPA withdrew the protection in January at the request of the new White House.
In July, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court struck down the EPA’s suspension of a 2016 rule that limits methane emissions from oil and gas wells. (The full circuit court reaffirmed the panel’s order last week.)
Also in July, a federal appeals court rejected the EPA’s justification for lowering renewable fuel standards.
snip//
And there are more, ongoing court challenges to suspensions of Obama-era environmental policies
There are many more open lawsuits against Pruitt’s EPA over a variety of issues, some of which relate to similar, allegedly unfounded, suspensions of Obama-era policies:
more...
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/energy-and-environment/2017/8/11/16113348/trump-environmental-agenda-crashing-into-courts
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