PHILADELPHIA (CN) — A conservation group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday claiming the Environmental Protection Agency is dragging its feet in deciding whether to approve Pennsylvania’s plan to clean up smog.
The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeks a court order requiring the EPA to publish a final rule detailing its new analysis or decision regarding Pennsylvania's state implementation plan. The Center for Biological Diversity claims the commonwealth uses outdated technology to combat smog.
"Fifteen years after the EPA set stronger limits on smog pollution, there's still no plan to control the dangerous emissions spewing from Pennsylvania's filthy fracking industry," said Robert Ukeiley, a senior attorney at the center, in a statement. "The EPA needs to insist that polluters use the best modern technology to reduce the ongoing harm to families and wildlife."
The group had asked the Third Circuit to review the EPA's 2018 approval of Pennsylvania's smog cleanup plan, believing that the commonwealth violated a 1990 amendment to the Clean Water Act requiring states to use the most up-to-date and efficient technology to combat ozone.
The Third Circuit granted the EPA's motion for voluntary remand in 2021 so the agency could further review Pennsylvania’s plan. The Center for Biological Diversity opposed the motion for voluntary remand because of the risk of delay by EPA if the court did not set firm deadlines.
"It has been over 600 days since the Third Circuit remanded this rule to EPA," Tuesday's suit states. "Pennsylvania's air quality continues to suffer unnecessary pollution during this needless delay."
The group alleges that the longer the EPA waits, the more harm is done.
"EPA's continued delay in its further review of Pennsylvania's state implementation plan leaves Pennsylvania vulnerable to negative, and in some cases irreversible, health effects due to their continued exposure to ozone," the complaint states.
The center seeks a declaration that the EPA has unreasonably delayed approval under the Clean Air Act and an order compelling the agency to take final action on the remanded implementation plan.
Ground-level ozone, commonly called smog, is a corrosive air pollutant that inflames the lungs. Those most susceptible to harm from ozone pollution are children, the elderly, individuals with chronic lung diseases like asthma and COPD, and those who work outside.
The Center for Biological Diversity says the oil and methane gas industry is the largest industrial source of emissions of volatile organic compounds that contribute to smog. Pennsylvania is home to two mines that are the second- and third-highest emitters of methane gas in the U.S., with a third mine coming in at 11th, according to the EPA.
Western and central Pennsylvania lie within the Marcellus Shale, a 90,000 square-mile natural gas formation spanning West Virginia, New York and Ohio. The Marcellus Shale is rich in natural gas resources, and according to the American Petroleum Institute, it is the world's second-largest concentration of natural gas.
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking, of shale skyrocketed in the U.S. in the early 2010s. The total crude oil production in the U.S. roughly tripled from 2010 to 2020 due to the country's increased fracking activities.
Economists believe the fracking boom, which promised jobs and revenue to struggling Appalachian communities, ended up as a bust due to the high price of extracting oil and gas from shale. Pennsylvania went from 114 fracking rigs in 2012 to 19 in 2016.
Central Pennsylvania has the worst air quality in the state, with Lancaster County registering the most significant number of poor air quality days in 2020, at 107. Counties in the center of the state fared even worse than the commonwealth's urban areas of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Pennsylvania's laissez-faire attitude towards emissions affects more than just the Keystone State, with pollution spreading hundreds of miles downwind.
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