The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today rejected Kansas’s challenge to EPA’s disapproval of Kansas’s SIP revisions intended to comply with the Interstate Transport Rule. The Court found that EPA was not arbitrary or capricious in rejecting Kansas’s SIP, noting that:
The discussion of interstate transport in Kansas’s SIP was only one page long and failed to provide any analysis at all of the downwind effect of its in-state emissions.
Generally speaking, it’s just not wise for a state simply to thumb its nose at EPA. I realize that the legal issues related to EPA’s greenhouse gas rule are much more substantial, but assuming EPA does promulgate a final GHG rule, and if that rule survives legal challenge, I don’t suggest that states embark on a course of nullification.