A coalition of states is suing EPA, accusing the agency of failing to implement a Biden-era Clean Air Act rule that strengthened air quality standards for the pollutants known as soot.
In a new lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Northern California, the states are seeking to force EPA to act — even as the Trump administration is asking a federal court to strike down the regulation.
The complaint, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the California Air Resources Board, follows a similar challenge from a coalition of environmental groups filed last week. The states’ lawsuit asks a judge to fault EPA for failing to carry out the 2024 standard and order the agency to act within 150 days.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was brought by attorneys general from states including California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Vermont and Minnesota.
Soot is emitted from combustion at factories, power plants, construction sites and in cars. Breathing in the powdery substance can pose health problems from asthma to heart attacks and cancer.
“The science is clear. When air quality worsens, hospital visits rise. Children struggle to breathe. Lives are cut short,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the lawsuit. “No community should have to live with air that makes them sick.”
Bonta said his state has some of the worst levels of soot in the country, pointing to the Los Angeles-South Coast Air Basin, the San Joaquin Valley, Imperial County and Plumas County.
Dr. Vijay Limaye, climate and health scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the “EPA’s own analysis confirmed that strengthening the soot standard would deliver enormous public health benefits, preventing thousands of premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of cases of illness every year.”
The NRDC and other environmental groups filed a similar suit against the EPA over its soot standards earlier this month.
Republican states have challenged the 2024 soot standard and are seeking to nix it. California and other states have pushed back against those moves in separate court filings.
In 2024, the EPA strengthened its own national soot standard based on overwhelming scientific evidence that implementing these new standards would result in significant health benefits for Americans. Like preventing 4,500 premature deaths, 5,700 new cases of asthma, and 2,000 emergency room visits in the first year alone.
Being a survivor of childhood lung ailments (pneumonia, TB. and bronchitis) I hate dirty air, and I support all laws and regulations for clean air.
Jaak