{"id":3478,"date":"2020-09-01T22:39:27","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T22:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/?p=3478"},"modified":"2020-09-21T01:04:15","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T01:04:15","slug":"third-circuit-dumps-epa-approval-of-weak-pennsylvania-clean-air-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/third-circuit-dumps-epa-approval-of-weak-pennsylvania-clean-air-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Third Circuit Dumps EPA Approval of Weak Pennsylvania Clean Air Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Courthouse News Service. \u00a0 by <time class=\"entry-date published\" datetime=\"2020-08-27T11:33:19-07:00\"><\/time> <span class=\"byline\"> <span class=\"author vcard\"> <a class=\"author url fn\" title=\"Posts by EMILEE LARKIN\" href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/author\/emilee-larkin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"author follow noopener noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">EMILEE LARKIN<\/a> <\/span> <\/span>, August 27, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>PHILADELPHIA (CN) \u2014 An obvious loophole should have doomed Environmental Protection Agency approval of Pennsylvania\u2019s plan to limit air pollutants, the Third Circuit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/epa-pa.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"follow noopener noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">ruled Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo receive such deference, the agency cannot reach whatever conclusion it likes and then defend it with vague allusions to its own expertise; instead, the agency must support its conclusion with demonstrable reasoning based on the facts in the record,\u201d U.S. Circuit Judge Theodore McKee wrote for a three-judge panel. \u201cWhen it fails to do so, an agency action is arbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania presented its plan to the EPA in 2016, saying coal-fired power plants that operate at 600 degrees or higher would have to emit less than 0.12 pounds of nitrogen per million British Thermal Units.<\/p>\n<p>In a petition with the EPA, the Sierra Club made its objections known. It said such plants are capable of producing emissions at 50% of the proposed limit, and that the plan did not require plants to report their temperature records.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the pushback, the EPA approved the plan in 2019 and denied the Sierra Club\u2019s petition.<\/p>\n<p>The environmental group took to the Third Circuit, telling the federal appeals court in May oral arguments that the EPA had approved the plan arbitrarily.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/epa-approval-of-lax-emissions-plan-for-pennsylvania-tossed-out\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Full Article HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An obvious loophole should have doomed Environmental Protection Agency approval of Pennsylvania\u2019s plan to limit air pollutants, the Third Circuit ruled Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":3479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","category-solutions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.350.org\/pittsburgh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}