WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court is pressing the Environmental Protection Agency for a better explanation of how the Bush administration’s limit on the amount of soot and dust allowed in the air protects public health.
The court returned the standard to the EPA on Tuesday, arguing that the agency’s explanation was inadequate. The decision in the long-standing controversy found soot limits by the Bush administration unjustified, leaving it up to the Obama administration to set new ones.
More than a dozen states, along with environmental groups, sued the EPA seeking to lower the standard, contending that the Bush administration ignored science and its own experts when it decided in 2006 not to lower the nearly decade-old annual standard. The agency’s own analysis found the lower standard recommended by scientific advisers would have prevented almost 2,000 deaths each year.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the EPA failed to adequately explain, in view of the risks, why its standard was sufficient to protect public health.
The judges stopped short of vacating the current standards, saying the defect in the agency’s reasoning was curable and that even a flawed standard was better than none to protect public health.
