'Aggregation' Ruling Leaves Door Open For Citizen Suits Over Air Permits

A federal district judge has rejected environmentalists' novel suit aiming to force an oil and gas company to “aggregate,” or combine, emissions from its operations and trigger stricter Clean Air Act permitting requirements, but the decision leaves the door open to future citizen suits relying on an EPA test for aggregation that one appellate court has rejected. The ruling, which says the “functional interrelatedness” of units may be a factor in deciding aggregation and specifically disagrees with the earlier appellate...