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About this case
Documents
Filing Date
Type
Action Taken
Document
Summary
02/01/2024
Decision
Motion for voluntary remand without vacatur granted.
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.
02/22/2021
Amicus Motion/Brief
Brief filed by Energy Policy Advocates as amicus curiae in support of respondent.
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.”
Summary
Challenge to EPA's determination to retain the existing national ambient air quality standards for ozone.