This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
The words Utah, EPA and lawsuit just seem to go together. Put those three terms into Google and you are instantly rewarded with some 372,000 results.
Number 372,001, approximately, is the news that two national environmental groups have given notice that they intend to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to carry out the provisions of the federal Clean Air Act in Utah. And, to be fair, in 37 other states.
This is a bit of a change of pace compared to the usual Utah-involved lawsuit. Most of those tend to be cases where the state and/or big polluting industries that do business here sue the federal agency for doing, or trying to do, too much.
The argument rightly raised by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Environmental Health is that the EPA has missed its own deadlines for finding parts of Utah in violation of the agency's own limits for a particular particle pollutant known as PM2.5, as well as for ozone and other unhealthy airborne chemicals.
There's no serious argument to be made that air quality in Salt Lake City, Provo and Logan aren't in what's legally known as "nonattainment." The state clearly blew by a Dec. 31, 2015, deadline for fixing its problems. Now the EPA itself has missed its own July deadline for officially finding the areas in nonattainment, which would start the clock for the state Division of Air Quality to come up with a list of steps it will take to attack the hazards.
With none of that done, and the air continuing to pose a serious hazard to those who breathe it, the environmental groups are lawyering up to sue the EPA in hopes of getting a court to order the agency to do what it was supposed to have done already.
Of course, even if that legal step is successful, just an order doesn't do the EPA's work for it.
Utah-based environmental watchdogs, while not party to the suit, are hoping for some positive results. They say the problem is not that the EPA is being lazy, but that it doesn't have the horsepower, in funds and in staff, to keep up with all the nonattainment areas in 38 states. Which is likely to be true.
Congress has long had a reputation of expecting federal agencies to squeeze blood out of budgetary turnips. And, especially with Republicans in control, of being all too tempted to play the game of starving an agency for resources and then using that as proof that the bureaucracy is dysfunctional.
So, yes, bring on the out-of-state lawyers. But know that the only real solution will be an act of Congress.