Oklahoma’s legal challenge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s rejection of the state’s plan to adequately address its contributions to air-quality problems in downwind states is headed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
State Attorney General Gentner Drummond and Western Farmers Electric Cooperative, owner of a coal-fired electricity generating plant in Hugo, filed an appeal with the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals following the EPA’s decision in 2023. Utah was another of the 21 states rejected in the EPA ruling that joined the fight in federal court.
They challenged the EPA’s decision to disapprove the State Implementation Plans in Oklahoma and Utah. The EPA responded to have the court either dismiss the appeals or transfer them to the D.C. Circuit under the Clean Air Act’s judicial-review provision. Under the provision, the D.C. Circuit gets the assignment of any petition seeking review of a “nationally applicable” agency action.
In its recent ruling, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the EPA and granted its motions to transfer the petitions.
Drummond announced his lawsuit last December in a challenge of the EPA’s rejection of Oklahoma’s “good neighbor” plan to keep ozone emissions from affecting neighboring states.
“This is federal overreach of the first order,” Drummond wrote in a press release. “Rather than work with Oklahoma to make whatever modifications the EPA claims are necessary to comply with its burdensome regulations, the Biden administration is seeking a one-size-fitsall federal plan with absolutely no input from Oklahoma or other affected states.”
Drummond accused the EPA of placing unnecessary and costly burdens on Oklahoma businesses and ignoring the expertise of Oklahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality.
Drummond’s lawsuit was filed after the EPA announced that the SIPs of Oklahoma and 18 other states was rejected because they reportedly did not conform to federal regulations. Oklahoma’s SIP was rejected because of its reported failure to deal with small amounts of pollution detected in Denton, Texas.