Ongoing lawsuit to defend Regional Haze Rule
UPHE along with our partners sued the EPA at the end of the Trump administration, and now intend to continue that lawsuit against the Biden administration to ensure enforcement of the Regional Haze Rule. The Regional Haze Rule is designed to protect our national parks and wilderness areas from fossil fuel pollution. This pollution causes haze clouds in our country’s most iconic areas, and the Regional Haze Rule intends to return those wild places to natural visibility by 2064.
We’re disappointed in the Biden administration’s decision to perpetuate Utah’s coal industry’s violation of the Regional Haze Rule. Utah’s National Parks are some of our greatest treasures, and we can not continue to allow industry polluters like the coal-fired Hunter and Huntington power plants to skirt the law, degrade our air and quality of life in Utah.
Our executive director, Jonny Vasic, is quoted in our press release regarding the lawsuit saying “The medical research on air pollution is well established–there is no safe level of air pollution exposure. Even levels far below the EPA’s national standards precipitate a long list of human diseases, acceleration of the aging process and premature death. The do-nothing rule left over from the Trump Administration is unacceptable. The pollution from Hunter and Huntington not only creates regional haze but the burning of the coal represents a health hazard to people throughout Southern Utah and beyond,”
Full press release here:
