The EPA demand that all the lawyers have to take non-fossil fueled means of travel to court hearings
U.S. states sue EPA, Pruitt for rolling back climate change rule
A group of U.S. states led by New York sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, accusing Administrator Scott Pruitt of trying to illegally roll back limits on the use of climate change pollutants known as hydrofluorocarbons.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia said Pruitt violated the federal Clean Air Act on April 27 by issuing “guidance†that they said effectively rescinded regulations adopted in 2015 under the Obama administration.
New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood accused the EPA under President Donald Trump of trying “to gut critical climate protection rules through the backdoor,†by revoking the 2015 limits rather than going through a public review process.
The states petitioned the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. to throw out Pruitt’s decision.
Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, are often used in air conditioning, refrigerants, aerosols and foam-blowing.
The thing is, there really isn’t a viable substitute for HFCs at the moment for mass production, and what little there is tends to be really expensive and/or very inefficient. Who is hurt in this? The middle and lower classes. The fancy pants, highfalutin, 1%ers who are pushing this type of thing do not care.
Other states joining Wednesday’s lawsuit include California, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington.
They and New York are among many Democratic-led or -leaning states that have filed lawsuits challenging a long list of Trump administration policies.
One has to wonder if the people behind these suits, particularly the Democratic governors and AGs, have replaced their own AC units, refrigerators, etc, with non-HFC systems in their own homes? Oh, and that elections have consequences, especially in terms of doing away with rules from previous administrations which refused to even bother trying to do things through the duly elected legislative branch
