EPA’s recent decision to waive incinerator emission standards following hurricanes and other natural disasters is facing a lawsuit from four environmental and community groups.
The suit, filed late last week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, does not spell out the grounds. But one of the challengers earlier this month questioned EPA’s rationale that the exemption for commercial and industrial waste incinerators is needed to speed debris removal.
“While there may be pressure to lower costs or to provide a speedy resolution to the growing debris issues, burning — and especially burning without meeting emissions limits or other applicable requirements — is not the answer,” Concerned Citizens Around Murphy, based in southern Louisiana, wrote in comments on the agency’s decision.
The other plaintiffs in the suit are Air Alliance Houston, Healthy Gulf and the Sierra Club. None had the opportunity to weigh in before EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled the waiver in late August because the agency resorted to a procedural stratagem known as an interim final rule that skirted the usual requirement to provide the public with advance notice of its plans.
