US Environment Protection Agency faces legal action as pollution campaigners aim to raise technology bar
Two US air pollution control bodies are mounting a challenge to the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), claiming that current nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions limits on aircraft engines do not set the technology bar high enough.
The State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA) and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (ALAPCO), two national associations of air pollution control agencies active throughout the USA, earlier this year submitted a brief to the US Court of Appeals for the Washington DC circuit, challenging the EPA's November 2005 legislation on NOx emissions from new engines on commercial aircraft.
In amending existing NOx emission limits to meet the International Civil Aviation Organization equivalent, the EPA actually brought US standards into international alignment.
But the associations question whether the EPA's final emissions standards for NOx fail to promote public health adequately, claiming that they do nothing to reduce aircraft emissions because nearly all currently certificated or in-production engine models already meet or perform better than the ICAO standards, and that manufacturers already adhere to ICAO test procedures.
"The history of Clean Air Act implementation is a testament to the fact that technological innovation follows, rather than precedes, the adoption of stringent emission-control requirements," said STAPPA in a 2003 consultation.
To achieve the necessary emissions reductions from aircraft engines to eventually reverse the trend of increasing NOx emissions, STAPPA said EPA must establish standards that promote and accelerate technological innovation.
The associations also argue that the EPA placed undue emphasis on speculative safety concerns. They also accuse it of not including a production cut-off date for already certificated, newly manufactured aircraft engines of issuing a "near-term rule" without establishing a timeline for follow-up rulemaking and of acting "arbitrarily and capriciously" by creating delays that, ultimately, prevented the adoption of more stringent standards.
In a late September submission, the EPA vigorously defended its actions, claiming the aircraft engines emission rule and its timing is consistent with its duties as the body regulating aircraft engine emissions, that its decision not to include a production cut-off is neither arbitrary or capricious and that its move to adopt a near-term standard without establishing a schedule for subsequent rulemaking was "reasonable". STAPPA is expected to respond to the EPA brief.
Source: Flight International
