(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The U.S. Supreme Court today granted a request led by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost for an immediate stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to regulate air pollution nationwide through its “good neighbor plan.”
The court halted the program, which aims to protect downwind states from high levels of ozone pollution, while litigation in the lower courts continues.
“This is a significant victory for states' sovereignty and the rule of law,” Yost said. “This plan, if implemented, would have imposed undue regulatory burdens on states – and the EPA doesn’t have the power to do that.”
In a brief filed in October 2023 seeking the stay, Yost and two other state attorneys general assert that the EPA acted unlawfully by failing to consider key aspects of a collective problem.
"The EPA cannot impose such immense regulations on the States without having thought through all critical aspects of the problem it set out to solve," the brief says.
In arguments presented before the Supreme Court in February, Ohio Deputy Solicitor General Mathura Sridharan called the EPA’s actions arbitrary and capricious.
Even after nearly half of the states dropped out of the federal plan, Sridharan said, the EPA failed to acknowledge that “the math doesn’t work when the inputs, 23 states, don’t match the outputs, now the 11 states that remain in the plan.”
By pushing forward without considering the consequences of partial participation, she argued, the EPA overstepped its authority.
Today’s decision ensures that federal agencies are held to their obligation to be reasoned and thorough in their decisions, especially those that impose extraordinary burdens on the states, their industries and their residents.
Yost has repeatedly warned of federal overreach, filing multiple lawsuits to stop the implementation of rules imposed by federal agencies that exceed the powers granted to them.
“We are committed to defending the prerogatives of states against federal encroachment,” he said.
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