CT smog problem not alleviated by Supreme Court ruling on EPA

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday at least temporarily suspended a Biden administration rule that would have helped curb longstanding summer smog and other air quality problems in Connecticut.

The new rule would drastically reduce emissions from power plants and industrial facilities in the Midwest and West that reach as far east as Connecticut, contributing to the state's high asthma rate and air quality that consistently falls short of federal standards.

The court's 5-4 ruling, written by Neil Gorsuch and dissenting from the three liberal justices and Amy Coney Barrett, once again thwarts Connecticut's decades-long legal effort to force the states in the wind to do something about the cross-state pollution that disproportionately plagues Connecticut.

“This case is going to have a direct impact on air quality in Connecticut and the entire Long Island Sound region and the entire New England region,” said Roger Reynolds, senior legal director for the environmental group Save the Sound. “Connecticut and New York are working hard to reduce emissions, but that is completely undermined by the pollution that is coming in from these power plants in the Midwest. And if we are not able to clean up the pollution from the power plants in the Midwest, we will never be able to effectively clean up the pollution in Connecticut.”

“This disappointing decision is a major setback for air quality and public health in Connecticut,” Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “As Judge Barrett notes in her dissenting opinion, this preliminary injunction 'leaves large portions of the upwind states free to continue to contribute significantly to the ozone problems of their downwind neighbors for years to come.' This is an unacceptable outcome. But our fight is not over. Although the Supreme Court has temporarily stayed enforcement of the Good Neighbor Provision, we will continue to aggressively pursue our ongoing litigation.”

The ruling joins a list of recent pushbacks against the Biden administration's environmental policies by this most conservative version of the Roberts court. Two years ago, it blocked the Biden administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. It restricted which waters can be protected under the Clean Water Act. Before this term ends, there will be a major decision that many expect will significantly weaken the power of administrative agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency to follow the science. On Tuesday, the court announced that next term it would consider a challenge to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which requires in-depth environmental reviews for federal projects.

“This is the worst three years for the environment in the Supreme Court since our most important environmental laws were passed in the early 1970s,” Reynolds said. “There is a clear pattern of weakening agency capacity, and there is a particular focus on the EPA.”

The rule in question, known as the Good Neighbor Plan, was finalized by the Biden administration in March 2023. It required 23 states in the Midwest and West to reduce pollution from their power plants and industrial operations, tightening standards previously set by the Obama administration. The Trump administration did not take similar action, although it should have done so to comply with the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act, in effect since 1970, contains a good neighbor policy designed to prevent upwind states from polluting downwind ones.

While the rule has already been implemented in some states, many states fought the plan, resulting in a hodgepodge of court rulings that included stays on the rule with and without a stay. Some states that were not granted stays filed emergency appeals to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal to decide whether to grant the stay while the various cases continue to be heard in the courts.

Connecticut was among a dozen states and other entities that filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking it not to impose a stay.

In the meantime, Connecticut is facing another summer of air pollution and poor air quality. Pollution from the West and south of Connecticut, the air normally moves east and north with the prevailing winds and “cooks” in the sun in the summer, creating ozone or smog. Connecticut is their landing place.

The EPA has determined that “Southern Connecticut has the highest ground-level ozone levels in the eastern half of the United States. The ozone measured by air quality monitors in southwestern Connecticut comes almost exclusively (90-95%) from other states. Connecticut cannot meet EPA's ozone air quality standards without reducing emissions from sources in the states south and west of Connecticut.”

The American Lung Association's 25th annual State of the Air report, released late last year, found that Connecticut again received an F grade for high ozone levels in four of its eight counties and that Fairfield County has the worst ozone pollution east of Texas.

For nearly half a century, most of Connecticut has had ozone levels that exceed the national air quality limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Currently, the southern part of the state – Fairfield, New Haven and Middlesex counties – do not even meet the less stringent 2008 limits. Officially, this is called “noncompliance,” and in recent years the situation in these counties has worsened to the point of “severe noncompliance.” The state as a whole is only moderately meeting the more stringent 2015 limits. The rating is expected to worsen to “severe.”

In the current ozone season alone, which runs from March to September, the state recorded 12 days of bad air. In all of last season, there were 19, which is the lowest for the state and not comparable to the brown cloud pollution of the 1970s.

Some of the causes of the state's ozone problem are local, primarily from transportation. The last coal-fired power plant in New England – Merrimack Station near Concord, NH – is scheduled to close in 2028.

The Good Neighbor Plan, in its original form, would have gone into effect in 2026. The EPA projects that this year alone it would have prevented about 1,300 premature deaths, avoided over 2,300 hospital and emergency room visits, reduced asthma symptoms by 1.3 million cases, prevented 430,000 days of school absence and 25,000 lost work days.

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CT smog problem not alleviated by Supreme Court ruling on EPA

Anna Harden

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