Oklahoma’s legal challenge of the EPA’s rejection last year of the state’s plan to adequately address its contributions to air-quality problems in downwind states, is headed to the D.C. Circuit Court of appeals.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond along with Western Farmers Electric Cooperative, owner of a coal-fired electric generating plant in Hugo, filed an appeal with the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals following the EPA’s decision in 2023. The state of Utah was another of the 21 states rejected in the EPA ruling that joined the fight in federal court.
They challenged the EPA’s decision to disapprove the SIPs in Oklahoma and Utah. The EPA responded to have the court either dismiss the appeals or transfer them to the D.C. Circuit under the Clean Air Act’s judicial-review provision. Under the provision, the D.C. Circuit gets the assignment of any petition seeking review of a “nationally applicable” agency action.
In its ruling this week, the Tenth Circuit agreed with the EPA and granted its motions to transfer the petitions.
Attorney General Drummond announced his lawsuit last December in a challenge of the EPA’s rejection of Oklahoma’s “good neighbor” plan to keep ozine emissions from affecting negibhring states.
“This is federal overreach of the first order,” Drummond said in a press release at the time.
“Rather than work with Oklahoma to make whatever modifications the EPA claims are necessary to comply with its burdensome regulations, the Biden Administration is seeking a one-size-fits-all federal plan with absolutely no input from Oklahoma or other affected states.
He accused the EPA of placing unnecessary and costly burdens on Oklahoma businessses and ignoring the expertise of Oklahoma’s Department of Environmental Quality.
Drummond’s lawsuit was filed after the EPA announced months earlier that the state implementation plans or SIPS of Oklahoma and 18 other states had been rejected because they reportedly did not conform to federal regulation.
Oklahoma’s rejection came because of its reported failure to deal with small amounts of pollution detected in Denton, Texas.