EPA’s “Sue and Settle Rulemaking” Criticized in New Report, Congressional Hearing

From POWER magazine:

The EPA’s Regional Haze program, established by the Clean Air Act in 1977, seeks to remedy visibility impairment at federal national parks and wilderness areas. But because the rule is an “aesthetic regulation, and not a public health standard,” Congress stressed that the states, not the federal agency, should impose regulations that govern it, says the chamber’s July 13 report titled “EPA’s New Regulatory Front: Regional Haze and the Takeover of State Programs.”

“However, EPA—with some help from its friends at special interest groups and the controversial ‘Sue and Settle’ Rulemaking process—has devised a loophole to usurp state authority and federally impose a strict new set of emissions controls that cost 10 to 20 times more than the technology the states would otherwise have used,” alleges the report authored by William Yeatman, an assistant director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the free-market think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Read more at Competitive Enterprise Institute-Energy