EPA gets sued over its anti-smog plan in LA

While that quality of the air in Los Angeles is better than it has been in the past, it certainly isn’t good, which is why two national environmental and health groups, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as two local groups, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and Communities for a Better Environment, are suing the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do a better job.

According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the four groups asked 9th United States Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday to reject a clean air plan that was submitted by the local anti-smog agency on the grounds that the plan allows polluters to escape the strenuous regulations and leaves the people of Los Angeles breathing smoggy, polluted air.

“Health groups and environmental groups are getting increasingly frustrated with these plans and their inability to clean the air,” said Adrian Martinez, staff attorney for Earthjustice, which is representing three of the plaintiffs, according to SCPR. “It just doesn’t really show us how we’re going to get to cleaner air in the region.”

“I don’t see any loopholes at all,” said Barbara Baird, chief deputy counsel of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which approved the clean air plan back in December of 2012, which was adopted by the California Air Resources Board early the next year. Baird claims that part of the plan relies on new technologies being implemented in the region, such as electric trucks and similar technologies.