EPA Slammed in Appeals Court Over Cement Kilns Ruling

From the New York Times, excerpt.

WASHINGTON, March 13 — A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rebuked the Environmental Protection Agency in a decision Tuesday, indicating that the regulators had flouted Congress and the courts in setting the standards governing hazardous air pollution emissions from plants making bricks and ceramics.
(...)
“If the Environmental Protection Agency disagrees with the Clean Air Act’s requirements for setting emission standards it should take its concerns to Congress,” the judges wrote in an unusually pointed final paragraph.

And from the Wall Street Journal this brief also citing the AP and the NYT.

The Bush administration is being sued by Michigan, Illinois and six East Coast states that accuse the White House of failing to adequately regulate emissions of mercury and other pollutants from cement plants, the Associated Press reports. The states say a rule issued in 2005 by the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't comply with the federal Clean Air Act because the agency stopped short of imposing strict limits on toxic mercury from the kilns. Separately, a three-judge U.S. Appeals Court panel rebuked the EPA for flouting Congress and the courts with the standards it set for hazardous emissions from plants that make bricks and ceramics, the New York Times reports. The panel said the EPA was ignoring a federal appellate opinion that ordered it to follow instructions from the Clean Air Act for setting such emission standards for kilns that "collectively emit more than 6,440 tons of toxic acids and small soot, which can cause breathing difficulties, organ damage and cancer," the Times says.

This issue has been followed closely by Hg-ATME and this ruling is the correct one that rights a previous wrong. The Clean Air Act is clear and the EPA must follow Congress's laws as passed, and this court ruling makes that very clear. The full NYT article can be read here.