R.I.-led lawsuit succeeds in challenge to EPA rule

NEW YORK – A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled in favor of Rhode Island and five other states that sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, alleging that it had failed to live up to the mandates of the Clean Water Act with its Phase II Rule, issued in 2004.
The rule “essentially allows existing power plants like Brayton Point Station in Somerset, Mass., to continue operating using no greater environmental control than they would have been required to use before 1989,” R.I. Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch’s office said.
The appellate panel found that, in all of the provisions of the rule that were challenged by the states, the EPA had either exceeded its authority or had violated the Clean Water Act. The court sent the rule back to the EPA to be corrected.
Rhode Island was joined in the lawsuit by Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.