by Kevin Zimmermann
(WHBL) – The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has weighed in on a challenge by Clean Wisconsin to the EPA’s decision that designated Sheboygan County as having attained clean air standards for ground-level ozone. That attainment status was greeted with loud approval by area business and government leaders who say that Sheboygan County was being punished for pollution generated elsewhere, and delivered here via Lake Michigan-influenced transport of air.
In its decision filed last Friday, the Court agreed with Clean Wisconsin that the EPA failed to provide scientific information robust enough to prove the veracity of that theory, and said that it acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner by using data and modeling that the agency itself admitted could not be fully assessed, or that was determined to be seriously flawed.
As a result of the Court’s decision, the EPA has been instructed to provide solid evidence to support Sheboygan County’s “attainment” status with regard to Clean Air Regulations, and that would prove the agency’s assertion that no amount of emission controls and regulations imposed upon Sheboygan County would ever be enough to overcome pollution transported from elsewhere via Lake Michigan.
