Fighting the incredibly destructive administration that continues it’s gutting of our environmental protections under cover of Covid.
Nine states on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for relaxing a range of companies’ compliance and monitoring requirements with federal clean air and water laws in response to the coronavirus pandemic, arguing the policy is too broad and not transparent. Under the temporary policy announced on March 26, the EPA said it would not seek penalties for violations of routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification obligations in situations where the EPA agrees that COVID-19 was the cause…The coalition of the nine states – New York, California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Vermont and Virginia – argue that the EPA lacks legal authority to waive “critical monitoring and reporting obligations that inform regulators and the general public of pollution hazards” and failed to weigh the impacts the relaxation policy will have on public health amid the coronavirus pandemic. Their lawsuit comes a month after more than a dozen environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose president is former Obama EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy filed their own challenge in the same New York federal court. (Reuters)
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |
