Kentucky v. EPA

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied petitions for review challenging the 2024 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule revising the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter from 12 to 9 micrograms per cubic meter. The D.C. Circuit also denied the Trump administration EPA’s motion to vacate the rule on the grounds that the 2024 rule exceeded EPA’s authority and that EPA unreasonably failed to consider costs. The D.C. Circuit held that the EPA Administrator acted within his statutory authority and rejected state and industry petitioners’ and EPA’s arguments that the rule was arbitrary and capricious. The state petitioners argued, among other things, that the EPA Administrator impermissibly relied on considerations related to promoting environmental justice and countering climate change in revising the NAAQS. The D.C. Circuit noted that EPA’s August 2024 response brief “did not dispute … the … premise that environmental justice and climate change are impermissible reasons for setting primary NAAQS” under the Clean Air Act, which provides that primary NAAQS be standards “requisite to protect the public health.” EPA instead argued, and the D.C. Circuit agreed, that the record did not support the state petitioners’ claim “that climate or environmental justice considerations improperly influenced the Agency’s course of action.” The court found that EPA’s statements in the final rule did not suggest that the Administrator considered environmental justice or climate change and that “[o]n the contrary, the EPA made clear in its response to public comments that it had ‘no intention or goal to reduce greenhouse gases through this rulemaking.’”