The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, on June 27 issued a decision temporarily staying the Federal Implementation Plan for the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards — also known as the Good Neighbor plan — which sought to impose tighter limits on releases of nitrogen oxides in the 23 states subjected to the Good Neighbor Plan.
The Supreme Court’s decision is in response to several emergency stay petitions by states (Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia), utilities, and industry groups that called for a halt in implementation.
The decision neither permanently stays nor vacates the final Good Neighbor Plan.
Instead, the decision prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from applying the regulations in any of the affected states while the challenges on the merits are considered in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
APPA submitted comments on the proposed rule, which called for EPA to withdraw its proposal and issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking that eliminated the proposed changes and corrected many of the errors and underlining assumptions.
