Three-judge appeals court panel hands victory to Texas in dispute with EPA

In the latest legal turn in an ongoing fight over appropriate environmental regulation, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled 2-1 on Monday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rejection of a key Texas air permitting program violated the federal Clean Air Act. The EPA's rejection of Texas' flexible permitting program, which applied to refineries, power plants and other industrial sites, overstepped the agency's bounds, the court held by a 2-1 margin. Under the program, established in 1994 under Gov. Ann Richards, companies could modify their facilities without additional regulatory review so long as any increase in emissions would not exceed an overall limit specified in the permit. In 2010, the EPA rejected the program, arguing that the Texas regulations contained inadequate monitoring provisions and gave too much discretionary power to the director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, among other reasons. According to the majority opinion of Judge E. Grady Jolly, which called the rejection "sixteen years tardy," as long as minimum standards of the Clean Air Act are met, "states enjoy a measure of discretion." The EPA's disapproval "transgresses the (Clean Air Act's) delineated boundaries of this cooperative relationship," the majority held...more