Association of Irritated Residents v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Petitioner, Association of Irritated Residents (“AIR”), petitions this court for review of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) promulgation of 40 C.F.R. § 52.245 , a regulation that revised the scope of a previous EPA decision. The EPA promulgated the regulation under § 110(k)(6) of the Clean Air Act (“CAA,” “Act”), an error-correcting provision, after the Agency determined that it had mistakenly approved certain New Source Review rules in 2004 as part of California’s State Implementation Plan.

This case requires the court to address two matters. First, this court must decide whether the EPA reasonably determined that it made the error. This court holds that the EPA was not arbitrary, nor did it abuse its discretion in correcting its prior approval of the New Source Review rules after it learned that California law, specifically Senate Bill 700, did not authorize the San Joaquin Air- Control District to require new source permits or emissions offsets for minor agricultural sources. Because those rules conflicted with state law, they should not have been incorporated into the State Implementation Plan in 2004; thus, the EPA did not act improperly…