Court Probes Accountability in EPA Air Pollution Accounting Rule

A federal appeals panel offered few hints Friday as to whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s relaxed emissions calculations lawfully holds polluters accountable.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit during oral arguments thoroughly questioned environmental groups and the agency over the Trump administration’s restored “project emissions accounting” rule, which allows facility operators to count future emission decreases when calculating the total pollution impact of their operations.

Judge Brad Garcia scrutinized the standard for how related an emission-decreasing project must be to apply to a new development’s impact. The agency’s own record states the need for a standard that ...