9th Circuit Backs EPA’s ‘Exceptional’ Air Events Policy In Rejecting Challenge

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is supporting EPA’s policy granting states retroactive regulatory waivers for “exceptional” air pollution events, rejecting a lawsuit by Arizona residents challenging the agency’s 2019 redesignation of the Phoenix-Mesa area as in attainment with the 2008 ozone standard. “Because of a major wildfire in southeast California in 2015 (the ‘Lake Fire’), six air quality monitors in the Phoenix region registered abnormally high concentrations of ozone, in excess of...