Supreme Court's Clean Air Ruling Risks Enforcement Divide

Environmental attorney Brian Bunger was quoted in a Bloomberg Law article about the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling on the correct venue for Clean Air Act (CAA) enforcement disputes. The case concerned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) disapproval of a State Implementation Plan (SIP) for National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), and the ruling raised the threshold for EPA to bring challenges before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, potentially causing fragmented interpretations across different circuits and delaying uniform enforcement of clean air standards nationwide. Mr. Bunger noted the decision presents an opportunity for the EPA to better structure its reviews to focus on nationally applicable standards so that challenges are more likely to be heard in the D.C. Circuit, the agency's preferred venue.

"EPA can do the upfront work to structure their review" of state-submitted plans such as SIPs or small refineries exemptions "in a way that the court would say were in the national framework, as opposed to localized review," he said.

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