Federal lawsuit on EPA missing deadline after deadline may have had something to do with action taken this week

The federal Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to take action to deal with air pollution in Fairbanks.

The proposal by the EPA this week to reject key parts of a state air plan comes against the backdrop of a fifth federal lawsuit filed against the agency because it has missed deadline after deadline over many years in overseeing the creation of a workable plan.

I will deal with the topic in more detail in the days to come, but here is the latest federal lawsuit filed last fall by Citizens for Clean Air in federal court in Washington.

The law required the EPA to act on the proposed air plan by June 15 last year and the agency missed that deadline, the plaintiffs allege. EPA disputes the claim.

Here is a court order allowing the state to intervene in the case. The attorney general’s office heralded its entrance into another federal court case with no more than the usual quotient of anti-fed preaching , while also claiming that the delay in getting a plan stems in part from a failure by EPA, not the state. The inability to make an “outdated modeling program work in a subarctic environment to demonstrate attainment” is the fault of the EPA, the state claims.