Groups sue to get EPA to act
Court is asked to force agency to designate areas
Ten environmental and public health groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday, accusing federal officials of dragging their feet on designating major metropolitan areas — including Houston — out of compliance with clean air regulations.
The lawsuit, filed after the groups threatened a legal challenge two months ago, asks the court to force the EPA to declare which areas do not comply with the regulations, specifically those regarding ozone levels. The designation starts the clock for states to come up with plans to clean up the air in those areas.
“Delaying the remaining critical information is putting people’s health and lives at risk, especially those in our most vulnerable communities, including children, older adults, and those with lung disease,” Harold P. Wimmer, CEO of the American Lung Association, said in a statement.
EPA officials on Monday declined comment on the lawsuit and its plans for setting the designations.
Designating where air quality is an issue is the first step in receiving federal funding for projects aimed at reducing pollution. Failure to meet national standards can come with assistance, such as programs to help replace pollution-spewing machinery and vehicles, but also restrictions. Nonattainment is the primary reason many Texas counties — including Harris and surrounding communities, require emissions testing of all registered vehicles.
Ultimately, the goal is reducing smog, which contributes to a host of health problems related to breathing, such as asthma and bronchitis. Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable, and in some neighborhoods of Houston, environmental groups have said the air quality drives some indoors, reducing the exercise they are able to get in their community.
The EPA was supposed to release its list of places that did not meet the 2015 ozone national air quality standard on Oct. 1, per rules in the federal Clean Air Act. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt earlier this year considered delaying the designations for a full year, but later said he expected the designations by Oct. 1, after states and advocacy groups said they would challenge a delay.
Environmental and health groups notified the EPA after Oct. 1 they would proceed with a lawsuit.
In November, Pruitt announced that 2,646 counties in the country meet the new standards, but did not declare the remaining counties as non-attainment areas.
“More than 100 million of the roughly 323 million people in the United States live in the hundreds of counties that remain,” the groups’ lawyers said in the lawsuit.
The areas not covered by Pruitt’s November announcement include the 15 largest metro areas in the country.
Formalizing which places do not meet federal standards is crucial to implementing new rules related to air quality. In 2015, the EPA strengthened regulations, dropping the allowable ozone level for an eight-hour period from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb.
Perhaps the place most impacted by the delay in Texas is San Antonio, said Elena Craft, an Austinbased senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund.
“By all measures, they are out of attainment but have not been officially designated,” Craft said, noting that means San Antonio is cut off from state air quality funding because it lacks non-attainment status. “That, to me, is the most salient health case in the state.”
For other areas, such as Houston and Dallas, the lack of designation slows progress at a time when air quality solutions are needed, advocates said.
“What it means is, you are not being put on the path to getting better,” said Matthew Tresaugue, Houston-based spokesman for the Environmental Defense Fund.
The group was joined in the lawsuit by the lung association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society, Appalachian Mountain Club, Earthjustice, Environmental Law & Policy Center, National Parks Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and West Harlem Environmental Action.