EPA is summarily abandoning key parts of a long-running bid to crack down on an East Texas power plant that in recent years has been one of the nation’s top emitters of lung-damaging sulfur dioxide.
While EPA had previously flunked the two-county area around the Martin Lake plant for compliance with its 75 parts-per-billion exposure standard for the pollutant, a federal appellate court in May ordered the agency to revisit that decision.
Now, in a forthcoming rule issued without first seeking public feedback, EPA says that the “nonattainment designation” for the area has been vacated. As a result, the agency is withdrawing two key procedural findings intended to enforce that designation: that the area had failed to punctually meet the 75 ppb limit and that Texas had failed to submit an adequate cleanup plan.
Because the mandate from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “has already vacated the nonattainment area designation,” the rule says, “EPA actions following are no longer valid and EPA must now reflect those changes.”
