Seventeen states have banded together to file a lawsuit challenging the EPA for reversing car emissions rules. Oklahoma is not one of them.
The suit was filed over the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent decision to drop clean car emissions standards for model years between 2022 and 2025. It accuses the EPA of failing to follow its own rules and acting “arbitrarily and capriciously” without evidence to support the decision.
California was the leader of the coalition that filed the lawsuit.
“The evidence is irrefutable—-today’s clean car standards are achievable, science-based and a boon for hardworking American families. But the EPA and Administrator Scott Pruitt refuse to do their job and enforce these standards,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “Enough is enough. We’re not looking to pick a fight with the Trump administration, but when the stakes are this high for our families’ health and our economic prosperity, we have a responsibility to do what is necessary to defend them.”
“The states joining today’s lawsuit represent 140 million people who simply want cleaner and more efficient cars,” said California gov. Jerry Brown. “This phalanx of states will defend the nation’s clean car standards to boost gas mileage and curb toxic air pollution.”
The suit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and seeks to set aside and hold unlawful the EPA’s effort to weaken the nation’s existing clean car rules.
The other states include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington. The California Air Resources Board also joined the lawsuit.