State of Arizona v. Lee M. Thomas, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The State of Arizona petitions this court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7607 (b)(1) to set aside the action taken by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Administrator) in disapproving Arizona’s Clean Air Act implementation plans and imposing mandatory sanctions on construction of new carbon monoxide pollution sources. The EPA took the action pursuant to section 7410(a)(2) of the Act which gives it authority to approve and disapprove plans, and pursuant to section 7506(a) which mandates sanctions in case of disapproval. The EPA found that Arizona had failed to produce a plan which would demonstrate timely attainment of the air quality standard for carbon monoxide.

In this litigation Arizona does not dispute the underlying EPA findings, as required by section 7506(a), that the state had not submitted an implementation plan meeting the statutory requirements and that it had failed to make reasonable efforts toward submitting such an implementation plan. Rather, Arizona argues that by virtue of certain language in EPA regulations, the EPA was required as a matter of law to treat Arizona as if it had been implementing a fully-approved plan. Arizona argues that the…