Clean Air Council Statement on U.S. Supreme Court’s Ohio v. EPA Decision

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 27, 2024) –  Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Ohio v. EPA stalling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Good Neighbor Plan. The Good Neighbor Plan protects air quality by requiring 23 upwind states to reduce emissions of air pollutants that are contributing to dangerous ozone pollution levels in downwind states. Ozone pollution can worsen health issues like asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, and cause premature death. As part of the Good Neighbor Rule, states must file plans indicating how they would meet these standards and reduce air pollution traveling to other states. In 2023, EPA found that the plans submitted by several states were insufficient, and so EPA fulfilled its obligation to generate a plan those states must follow to meet the standards and reduce the harm they are inflicting on residents of downwind states. Big polluters and certain states had asked that the courts put the Plan on hold. 

Alexander G. Bomstein, Esq., Clean Air Council Executive Director issued the following statement:

“This ruling is a victory for corporate greed at the expense of human life. As Clean Air Council and other environmental advocates argued to the Supreme Court, the Good Neighbor Plan ‘ensure[s] upwind power plants and other large industrial facilities take reasonable measures to eliminate dangerous ozone emissions that significantly contribute to air quality problems in other States.’ EPA estimated the benefits of the Plan at $200 billion, mostly through lives saved and illnesses avoided. Putting this plan on hold at a time when fossil fuel air pollution is causing one in five deaths worldwide shows a callous disregard for all of our lives.”