EPA Could See Legal Brawl Over Conflicting Air Pollution Advice

The EPA’s refusal to strengthen airborne particle pollution standards is likely to prompt a legal clash over how the agency should handle conflicting recommendations from its scientific experts and other advisers, lawyers say.

Administrator Andrew Wheeler said yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency would maintain existing thresholds for airborne particle pollution, including soot, which is released from fossil fuel combustion and linked to cardiac and respiratory illnesses.

The agency’s team of outside clean air advisers in December recommended keeping the 2012 standards unchanged. But agency staff and former science advisers have repeatedly argued that the existing standards don’t adequately protect ...