Federal Appeals Court Backs EPA Plan to Reduce Air Pollution from Power Plants in Kansas

(Washington, D.C. – May 26, 2014) Healthier air for millions of Americans under the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule won another round in court today.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed a challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in Kansas. 

“Today’s decision ensures healthier air for Kansans, and also ensures healthier air for families in the downwind communities that are afflicted by the dangerous pollution from power plant smokestack emissions in Kansas,” said Tomas Carbonell, senior attorney for Environmental Defense Fund, which was a party to the case. 

EPA issued the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule under the “good neighbor” provision of the Clean Air Act, which is intended to ensure that the emissions from one state’s power plants do not cause harmful pollution levels in neighboring states. 

The Clean Air Act provides an opportunity for states to create a state implementation plan, or SIP, to reduce pollution that infects their neighbors’ air. If the states decline, or do not create an adequate SIP, EPA will create a pollution-reduction plan to ensure that clean air safeguards are carried out. Westar Energy, the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, and other parties sued when EPA disapproved the Kansas plan because it did not adequately protect the health of downwind communities.

Today, the court rejected that challenge, saying, “EPA acted well within the bounds of its delegated authority when it disapproved of Kansas’s proposed SIP.” 

The Supreme Court upheld the Cross State Air Pollution Rule in April of 2104. The rule’s life-saving pollution reductions are already in effect, but the D.C. Circuit court is still considering a few state-specific issues that the Supreme Court remanded to it.

The Cross State Air Pollution Rule will provide healthier air for 240 million American across the Eastern U.S. by establishing a federal limit on unhealthy pollution from power plants. When fully implemented, it will prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths and 400,000 asthma attacks each year. 

You can read more about the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule on EDF’s website.