COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY; KENTUCKY ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CABINET v. UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; MICHAEL S. REGAN, Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency - Articles

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COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY; KENTUCKY ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CABINET v. UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; MICHAEL S. REGAN, Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Dec 6, 2024

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ARGUED: Matthew F. Kuhn, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Petitioner Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED: Jarrod L. Bentley, KENTUCKY ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CABINET, Frankfort, Kentucky for Petitioner Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.

Attorneys 3: ARGUED: Jeffrey T. Hammons, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondents.

Attorneys 4: ARGUED: Claiborne E. Walthall, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Albany, New York, for Amici Curiae.

Attorneys 5: ON BRIEF: Matthew F. Kuhn, OFFICE OF THE KENTUCKY ATTORNEY GENERAL, Frankfort, Kentucky, for Petitioner Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Attorneys 6: ON BRIEF: Jarrod L. Bentley, Joseph A. Newberg, II, KENTUCKY ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CABINET, Frankfort, Kentucky for Petitioner Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.

Attorneys 7: ON BRIEF: Jeffrey T. Hammons, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondents.

Attorneys 8: ON BRIEF: Claiborne E. Walthall, Elizabeth A. Brody, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Albany, New York, Deena Tumeh, Kathleen Riley, Neil Gormley, EARTHJUSTICE, Washington, D.C., Shaun A. Goho, Hayden W. Hashimoto, CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE, Boston, Massachusetts, for Amici Curiae.

Judge(s): BOGGS, KETHLEDGE, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States Environmental Protection Agency

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. After the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed its air-quality standard for ozone under the Clean Air Act, the States needed to amend their state plans to implement the new standard. To help the States with their plan revisions, the EPA issued two guidance memoranda. It told the States that they could use specific modeling to identify their emissions that cross state lines. And it told them that they presumptively need not worry about any interstate emissions that fall below a specific minimum threshold. This guidance led Kentucky to propose a plan that did not reduce its emissions further. But the EPA sat on Kentucky’s proposed plan for some two years—well past the Clean Air Act’s deadline for the agency to act. It then belatedly disapproved the plan. To Kentucky’s surprise, this disapproval rested on different modeling that came out after the EPA’s deadline and on a lower threshold than the one the EPA told Kentucky it could use. Kentucky petitioned our court to vacate the EPA’s disapproval. In response, the EPA sought to transfer Kentucky’s challenge to the D.C. Circuit because the EPA had disapproved Kentucky’s plan in a rule that also rejected 20 other state plans.

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