Ozone Ruling Deals EPA Major Losses On Policy Efforts To Weaken NAAQS

A federal court has dealt EPA a major loss on its ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), remanding the 2015 “secondary” standard to protect the environment back to the agency to either tighten or better justify, scrapping permits based on older, weaker standards and barring consideration of “background” ozone in setting NAAQS. The only victory for EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s unanimous opinion issued Aug. 23 is the judges’ decision to...