A federal appeals court handed a win Monday to an environmental group challenging Colorado’s plan to comply with federal air quality standards for new emissions sources.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that EPA’s approval of part of the state’s plan to comply with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards improperly allowed the state to not consider air pollution from drilling and hydraulic fracturing from oil and gas wells before production begins. Colorado is the fourth-biggest state for oil production.
The appeals court sent that part of the plan back to EPA, but it declined to set an “arbitrary deadline” for the agency to provide “fuller explanation of its decision.”
The court agreed with the Center of Biological Diversity’s claims “concluding that the EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to address the potential emissions during drilling, fracking, and well completion,” said Judge Robert Bacharach, an Obama appointee, writing the opinion for the court.
