AUSTIN – The Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation filed a petition with the United States Environmental Protection Agency requesting the administrator reconsider and make less stringent the current national ambient air quality standards, or NAAQS, for fine particulate matter.
“The overlay harsh particulate matter standards have contributed to the decline of small businesses throughout the nation, and some have had to close shop as a result,” said Ted Hadzi-Antich, senior attorney for TPPF’s Center for the American Future. “We are proud to represent six California companies and trade associations who are stepping up on behalf small businesses everywhere to alert the current EPA administration of the terrible toll that these regulations take on one of the most significant sectors of our economy."
The review request is because current national ambient air quality standards are based on faulty assumptions and are substantially stricter than required to protect human health and welfare, thereby placing unnecessary burdens on economic activity, growth, and commerce. This unnecessary regulation has disproportionately affected small businesses who have neither the cash nor credit to comply with the strict standards.
Along with Delta Construction Company, Inc., a coalition of construction, trucking, energy, logging, and manufacturing small businesses are represented by the Center for the American Future as petitioners.
“The EPA may reconsider its prior decisions in light of developments in sound science,” said Ryan Walters, attorney for TPPF’s Center for the American Future. “This administrative petition provides a roadmap for the agency to consider the full range of recent peer-reviewed scholarship on the scientific evidence showing that particulate matter is overregulated.”
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set standards for particulate matter and other pollutants and to periodically review those standards in light of the latest scientific evidence. EPA is in the process of reviewing the particulate matter standards, and CAF has undertaken to represent six California companies as stakeholders in the review process, kicking off the effort by filing the administrative petition. This is the most recent example of TPPF’s efforts to combat regulatory overreach by EPA.
A copy of the petition is available here: https://www.texaspolicy.com/library/docLib/NAAQS-PET-WO-EXHIBITS-11-9-17-copy.pdf
For more information or to request an interview, please contact Alicia Pierce at [email protected] or 512-472-2700.
Ted Hadzi-Antich is the senior attorney in the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Ryan Walters is an attorney with the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin. The Texas Public Policy Foundation aims to advance a societal framework that effectively fosters human flourishing based upon cooperation and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and speech.
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