Federal Court Overturns EPA Emission Standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, on Jan. 4, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that treated boilers built as early as 2010 as new misinterprets what Congress outlined in the Clean Air Act, a federal appeals court ruled on Sept. 3.

The EPA’s 2022 rule said boilers were new as long as they were built after June 4, 2010.

Congress wrote in the Clean Air Act that a “new” source of emissions is one constructed or reconstructed after the EPA’s administrator first proposes emissions standards for that source.

While government lawyers argued that the standards were first proposed in 2010, followed by a lengthy process of refinement, the law refers to the date of the first proposal of each iteration of the standards, which, in this case, would be 2020, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The panel pointed to a special rule that exempts emission sources from new standards for three years if construction starts between the time updated standards are proposed and the time they are finalized.

“EPA’s interpretation of the new-source definition would render the ’special rule' almost nonsensical. Companies that build emission sources right after a new standard has been proposed would be entitled to a grace period to retrofit their sources if the final standard turns out to be stricter than the proposed one, but companies that built sources much earlier would be required to comply immediately with the updated standard,” the judges said.

“EPA does not explain why a statute that takes pains to give regulated parties enough time to meet changing emission standards would create this type of inconsistency.”

The panel set aside the part of the 2022 rule that defines boilers constructed or restricted before Aug. 24, 2020, as new sources.

Boilers burn materials such as coal to create energy. The United States Sugar Corporation sued over the EPA rule after it built a $65 million boiler that burns sugarcane pulp at its facility in Clewiston, Florida. Under the rule, the company said it would have to spend millions of dollars to retrofit the boiler even though construction ended before 2020 and despite the fact that the boiler meets the standards that were in place while it was constructed.

The corporation did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the EPA told The Epoch Times in an email that the agency is reviewing the ruling.

The panel consisted of U.S. Circuit Judges Robert L. Wilkins, Gregory G. Katsas, and Justin R. Walker.

The panel also rejected the other prong of the case, which asserted that the EPA wrongly relied on the same data to form the 2022 rule as it did to calculate standards in its 2013 rule. The panel said the EPA was acting neither arbitrarily nor illegally when it used the same data.