Court Sides With EPA on Interstate Air Pollution

A federal court is allowing the government to implement a plan to reduce air pollution that drifts from the Midwest to the Northeast, the Environmental Protection Agency said Friday.

The regulation, designed to force more controls on coal-burning power plants, has been bitterly contested by states that contend the effect of traveling smog has been exaggerated and pollution controls to cut it back would cost too much.

It also was challenged by utilities, manufacturers and the trucking industry.

The ruling means that 19 states, all east of the Mississippi, now have four months to submit to the EPA plans for reducing nitrogen oxide, an ingredient in smog, by May 2003. Some of the states will have to impose tougher controls than others: Much of the traveling smog problem has been blamed on tall utility smokestacks in the Midwest, Ohio Valley and parts of the South.

Michigan was the lead plaintiff in the case. State officials there had not decided whether to appeal to the Supreme Court, said Ken Silfven of the state Department of Environmental Quality.

“I think it’s a shame that a policy that is not based on science should be allowed to become the law of the land,” he said.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner called Thursday’s decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia “a major environmental victory for everyone living throughout the Eastern United States.”

Browner said the regulation was intended to reduce smog-related illnesses, including bronchitis and childhood asthma.

The EPA is letting states decide whether to crack down on power plant emissions or use some other method, such as attacking pollution from the exhausts of cars and trucks. But it says going after utilities will in many cases be the cheapest way for states to comply.