EPA Squares Off With States Over ‘Good Neighbor’ Pollution Plans

The Environmental Protection Agency faced a skeptical Fifth Circuit panel on Monday in marathon oral arguments over one of the agency’s cornerstone air plans for 2023.

Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and industry attorneys told judges that new rules governing wandering ozone pollution strip the states of their full Clean Air Act discretion to present their own mitigation plans for agency approval.

The contested “Good Neighbor” program—part of National Ambient Air Quality Standards, or NAAQS—requires so-called upwind states to limit precursor air emissions that create harmful ozone pollution, which can blow into downwind states and hinder compliance with air laws.

The two-part ...