{"id":74485,"date":"2016-10-25T22:42:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T02:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74485"},"modified":"2016-10-25T20:46:16","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T00:46:16","slug":"schneiderman-state-coalition-sue-epa-to-force-smog-pollution-control-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=74485","title":{"rendered":"Schneiderman, state coalition sue EPA to force smog pollution control decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Attorny_General_Eric_T_Schneiderman\"<\/a><\/strong>Suits Seeks To Compel EPA To Take Overdue Action On A Coalition Petition To Require Upwind States To Control Smog Pollution That Blows Into New York And Other Northeast States;\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Schneiderman: States Upwind Of New York Can\u2019t Be Allowed To Continue To Shift The Cost And Public Health Burdens Of Their Pollution Onto New Yorkers<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, leading a coalition of five states, brought a lawsuit today against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force the Agency to take long-overdue action on a coalition petition that seeks to ensure upwind states control the pollution that blows into New York and other downwind states. This pol<\/span>lution from upwind states contributes to dangerous ground-level ozone, or \u201csmog.\u201d\u00a0 The petition, which was submitted to EPA in late 2013, would have EPA add nine additional states to the \u201cOzone Transport Region\u201d (Ozone Region), a group of states established under the federal Clean Air Act that must act in concert to reduce smog pollution within the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStates upwind of New York that don\u2019t take adequate responsibility for their pollution shift the cost and public health burdens of this pollution onto New Yorkers,\u201d Attorney General Schneiderman said.\u00a0 \u201cOur coalition has waited almost three years for EPA to decide on whether it will use its legal authority to require upwind states to stem their contribution to the smog pollution. As we have waited, the health of millions of New Yorkers has continued to be threatened. Today, we are suing to force long-overdue action by EPA on this important petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, New York State\u2019s air quality has suffered from pollution from coal-fired power plants located in upwind states,\u201d said Basil Seggos, Commissioner, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. \u201cIt is time for EPA to require those states to join our efforts to reduce the ozone pollution that contributes to asthma and other respiratory illness.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December 2013, New York and other Northeastern states submitted a petition under the Clean Air Act asking EPA to add the nine states shown through modeling and analysis to contribute to ozone standard violations in the Ozone Region. While the Clean Air Act requires EPA to act on such a petition within 18 months<\/span>, and the coalition notified EPA in April of this year of its intention to sue over further inaction, the Agency has yet to act on the petition.<\/p>\n

As a consequence, today, New York, joined by the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York asking the court to compel EPA to comply with its nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Air Act to approve or disapprove the petition. The States seeks a court order requiring EPA to provide for public notice and comment on the states\u2019 petition and to approve or disapprove the petition, after considering public comment, by a date certain.<\/p>\n

Elevated levels of smog can cause a host of significant health effects, including coughing, throat irritation, lung tissue damage, and the aggravation of existing medical conditions, such as asthma, bronchitis, heart disease, and emphysema.\u00a0 Exposure to ozone has also been linked to premature mortality.\u00a0 Some groups, such as children, the elderly, and those with existing lung diseases are heightened health risk from exposure to smog.\u00a0 According to the American Lung Association\u2019s \u201c2016 State of the Air Report,\u201d the New York City metropolitan area ranks as the 14th most smog-polluted city in the nation.<\/p>\n

Congress created the Ozone Region to help states address pervasive smog problems in the Northeastern United States.\u00a0 By statute, the Region consists of 11 states \u2013 Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont \u2013 and the District of Columbia metropolitan area.\u00a0 Each state within the Region must develop and implement plans that achieve controls on NOx and VOCs applicable to all the states in the Region. However, despite enacting stringent in-state controls on sources of these pollutants, many states within the OTR \u2013 including New York \u2013 are not able to meet federal health-based air quality standards for smog.<\/p>\n

Modeling and analysis performed by EPA as well as states has shown that interstate transport of air pollution from upwind states outside of the Ozone Region \u2013including Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia \u2013 contribute significantly to violations of the 2008 federal smog standard within the Ozone Region. In addition, preliminary modeling demonstrates that emissions in these states, as well as North Carolina, are projected to contribute to violations of the recently updated, 2015 federal smog standard in the Region.<\/p>\n

States outside and upwind of the Region are not required to and generally do not\u00a0impose controls as stringent as those required of those within the Region. However, the federal Clean Air Act provides for states to petition EPA to add states to the Ozone Region, and for EPA to add states when the Agency has reason to believe that the interstate transport of air pollution from them when they significantly contribute to exceedances of the federal standard for smog in the Region.<\/p>\n

This matter is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General Morgan A. Costello and Michael J. Myers of the Attorney General\u2019s Environmental Protection Bureau. The Environmental Protection Bureau is led by Lemuel M. Srolovic and is part of the Division of Social Justice, which is led by Executive Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice Alvin Bragg.<\/p>\n

Robert Sliwinski, Robert Bielawa, Colleen McCarthy, Caitlin Stephen and Scott Griffin assisted from the Department of Environmental Conservation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suits Seeks To Compel EPA To Take Overdue Action On A Coalition Petition To Require Upwind States To Control Smog Pollution That Blows Into New York And Other Northeast States;\u00a0Schneiderman: States Upwind Of New York Can\u2019t Be Allowed To Continue To Shift The Cost And Public Health Burdens Of Their Pollution Onto New Yorkers Attorney […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23814,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}