A lawsuit
filed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by seven states is
seeking to force the federal agency to impose stringent new regulations on
residential wood-burning heaters, which they claim “can increase particle
pollution to levels that cause significant health concerns.” (See EPA wood-burning
lawsuit.pdf)
The lawsuit,
filed last month in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the
attorneys general of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon,
Rhode Island, and Vermont, is directed against currently unregulated “indoor
and outdoor wood boilers,” which have become an increasingly popular way to
heat homes, particularly in rural areas.
A related
suit was filed by the environmental group Earthjustice…..“EPA has been playing
this game for years,” Dunn, who is also a lawyer, continued. “Environmental
groups get together to file a lawsuit against the EPA with the goal of creating
a new regulation. EPA wants them to file the lawsuit because it wants to put
the new regulation in effect, but it doesn’t have the statutory authority to do
so. It’s like Brer Rabbit saying, ‘Please don’t throw me in the briar patch!”……
Such lawsuits, he added, do not meet the legal standard of “cases in
controversy,” in which the court is called upon to settle a real dispute. “They
are nothing but an opportunity for the courts to take power and authority from
the legislative and executive branches of the government since the courts
supervise the settlements. It’s a way the courts can become another
legislature.”- See more at:
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