EPA Challenged Over Pollution-Rules Delay

The American Lung Assn. said Monday it would fight the Environmental Protection Agency’s request for more time to set air quality standards.

The association, which initially sued the EPA to push it to review its air standards, said that it would ask the court to deny the EPA’s request and hold it to a court-ordered June deadline to issue new rules against soot and smog air pollution.

The association said that it endorses a 30-day extension of the public comment period, now set to end Feb. 18, as long as the final rules are issued in June.

“It is time for the Environmental Protection Agency to carry out its legal responsibility without further delay to make sure our air is really safe to breathe,” Fran Du Melle, the association’s managing director, said. “For months the polluters have been lobbying governors, the EPA, the White House and the Congress. They want a delay so they can continue lobbying behind closed doors to destroy these standards.”

Bowing to a request from the National Governors’ Assn., the EPA over the weekend said it would ask a federal court in Arizona to let the agency extend the public comment period by 60 days and push back the deadline for final standards.