Maryland v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 18-1285 (D.C. Cir. 2020)
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The DC Circuit granted Maryland's petition for review of the EPA's denial of its Clean Air Act section 126(b) petition requesting that the EPA impose additional limitations on certain upwind sources that were purportedly contributing to the state's nonattainment of the national ozone standards. The EPA applied the same four-step framework it developed in the implementation of section 110 and denied the section 126(b) petition at Step Three. The EPA concluded that Maryland failed to identify further cost-effective emission reductions at sources operating with catalytic controls. For the remaining sources named in Maryland's petition, the EPA explained that non-catalytic controls were not cost-effective in this context.
The court held that the EPA's determination was inadequate with respect to non-catalytic controls and therefore granted Maryland's petition for review in part, remanding the issue to the EPA. The court denied all other petitions for review from Delaware and a coalition of environmental groups. The court rejected some of the EPA's Step One determinations, but found, with one exception, that it reasonably denied the petitions at Step Three.
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