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U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY CONTINUES TO
DISREGARD
CLEAN AIR ACT
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) continues to violate the Clean Air Act in Brunswick, Georgia, by
refusing to answer a Petition filed by the Glynn Environmental Coalition (GEC)
and the Center for a Sustainable Coast (Sustainable Coast) in January 2003.
In March 2004,
the federal government promised to respond to GEC’s and Sustainable Coast’s
Petition to object to Hercules’s Title V Operating permit if granted an
extension to file their answer to the complaint filed in federal court in
January. On April 26, 2004, that extension ended and an answer was filed
without any substantive response by EPA or the federal government to the
Petition originally filed with EPA in January 2003.
“Thus
continues the saga of the state and federal governments blatantly refusing
to meet statutory deadlines for regulating air pollution in Brunswick,
Georgia,” said David Kyler with Sustainable Coast.
After four years of asking
the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) for a decision on
Hercules’s Title V permit application, the EPD finally issued the draft
permit in June 2002. GEC diligently met the short statutory deadlines for
commenting on that permit, and the final permit was issued in November
2002. Again the Plaintiffs met the short time frame for action and filed a
Petition with EPA to object to the permit in January 2003.
Although the Clean Air Act mandates that the U.S. EPA must issue a decision
on a Petition within 60 days, the EPA has—with no communication at
all—flagrantly disregarded their duties to citizens and has to this day
failed to respond to that Petition.
“While
the EPA and the federal government have spent vast resources over the years
getting citizens’ complaints dismissed on procedural grounds such as not
meeting statutory time limits,” said Scott Randolph, an attorney with the
Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation in Tallahassee, Florida, “the
agency and federal government now spend taxpayer money to disregard and
delay their mandatory duties.”
Nonetheless,
the Answer filed by the U.S. EPA in April maintains that the Clean Air Act
and the Georgia state program do not require the agencies to consider other
air pollution and cumulative impacts when permitting major sources of air
pollution. Indeed, the EPD says that Brunswick’s air pollution is no worse
than other parts of the state.
“Apparently, rather than
ensuring that any city has clean air, the state agency is satisfied with
knowing that everyone is breathing unhealthy air equally. How refreshing to
know that our agencies are guaranteeing a race to the bottom,” said Daniel
Parshley with the Glynn Environmental Coalition. “The law is on the side of
healthy air. Now, if we could only get the agencies responsible for
regulating those laws on the side of healthy air.”
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P. O. Box 2443