- The Supreme Court ruled Utah's clean air case should be tried regionally.
- Utah argued for a local jurisdiction in a lawsuit over EPA's clean air regulations enforcement.
- The ruling may expedite future litigation by clarifying jurisdictional issues in regulations under the Clean Air Act.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sided with Utah in a case about clean air regulations on Wednesday, a decision the state's solicitor general said could simplify and streamline future disputes over such regulations going forward.
The lawsuit stems from a 2015 change made by the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt more stringent standards for the amount of ground-level ozone, or smog, allowed in the air. With the change, each state was required to submit a plan outlining how it would comply with the new rules in the "good neighbor" provision of the Clean Air Act, which prohibits a state from allowing emissions that would impact another state's compliance with standards.
Utah and Oklahoma sued the agency after it disagreed with the states' assertions that they did not need to propose new measures to reduce emissions. Wednesday's 8-0 opinion by the high court didn't rule on the pollution standards, but it did address the venue in which the case should be tried.
After a lower court agreed with the EPA that the case should be moved to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Supreme Court determined the issue should be handled by a regional court and sent the issue back to the 10th Circuit Court, which oversees federal appeals from Oklahoma and Utah.
"The 10th Circuit erred in holding that petitioners' challenges should be reviewed in the D.C. Circuit," Associate Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his majority opinion. "EPA's disapprovals of the Oklahoma and Utah (state implementation plans) are locally or regionally applicable actions."
Utah had argued against moving the case to Washington, and Attorney General Derek Brown celebrated the opinion as a win for more local control.
"Utah had a victory at the United States Supreme Court today, with the court agreeing with Utah's argument involving the Clean Air Act that local courts should handle local issues, and the federal government should collaborate with the states — not ignore their unique differences," Brown said. "We are also grateful to the Trump administration's EPA for reconsidering its ruling that required litigations in the first place, and look forward to our continued partnership on behalf of Utah."
He also praised Utah Solicitor General Stanford Purser, who he said played a "critical role" in defending the state's position. Purser said he viewed the case as "really straightforward" and was not surprised by the outcome.
Purser said the opinion doesn't impact the standards set by the EPA under the Clean Air Act, but it will likely speed up the process of future litigation by establishing a precedent regarding which courts have jurisdiction.
Not only will the ruling make it more convenient for Utah to argue its case — the 10th Circuit is based in Denver — but it also means Utah's case will be heard by judges who are likely more familiar with the regional dynamics of the West, Purser said.
"It just reinforces what we view as the whole Clean Air Act regime, which is a cooperative federalism program — and that means EPA sets the standards, but then the states are afforded wide latitude to come up with what each state believes is the best plan for them," he told KSL.com. "It's so important that their decisions belong in a local circuit court where the judges are going to be much more familiar with conditions in Utah or Oklahoma or Colorado, or any of the three other states that make up the 10th Circuit."
The EPA announced in March it would reconsider the good neighbor provisions, which could result in Utah's original plan being implemented and making moot the issues in the state's lawsuit. For now, Purser said, the case is effectively paused in the 10th Circuit and may proceed if the Trump administration decides not to approve Utah's proposal.
