When EPA Administrator Michael Regan signed off on a major tightening of national soot standards early this year, he hailed it as “a game-changer” that will save thousands of lives in the future.
As a court showdown looms, however, a long lineup of foes are dredging up the standards’ contorted history to attack the rule.
In legal filings, Republican-leaning states and business groups have highlighted the switchbacked trail that led the Biden administration to ultimately strengthen the yearly exposure limit on what is formally known as fine particulate matter, or PM2.5.
For one thing, EPA was legally out of bounds in reconsidering a prior Trump-era decision to leave the standards unchanged, Kentucky and almost two dozen other states said in a June brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. For another, they continued, agency staff failed to examine the potential compliance costs of a stricter limit.
