Court slaps Bush EPA for blocking air pollution monitoring

Not for the first time, a federal court has slapped down the Bush administration for going too far to peel back the Clean Air Act.

This time, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out an Environmental Protection Agency rule that exempted major industrial polluters from measuring dangerous emissions at oil refineries and power plants.

The court, in a 2-1 decision, held that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act by allowing the largest air pollution sources to avoid monitoring, recording and record keeping of air pollution emissions. The judges also said states can enact monitoring requirements that are tougher than federal guidelines.

"This is a huge victory for everyone who breathes," said Keri Powell, an attorney for the environmental group Earth Justice. "We can't have strong enforcement of our clean air laws unless we know what polluters are putting into the air."

Eric Schaeffer of the Environmental Integrity Project called the government action part of EPA's "seven-year campaign to unravel the Clean Air Act." "The court understood that emission standards that aren't monitored can never be enforced."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Smog covers downtown Los Angeles in September 2006. Credit: Gabriel Bouys / AFP/Getty