Court Sets EPA Deadline for Regional Haze Plan for Arkansas

U.S. District Court Judge Leon Holmes ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has until August 31st to approve a regional haze plan for Arkansas.  Judge Holmes also denied a motion from the Arkansas Attorney General, who was allowed to intervene just a few months prior, to dismiss the Sierra Club's lawsuit for lack of standing.  The decisions come in a suit brought by the Sierra Club against the EPA beginning in 2014, asserting that the EPA should have promulgagted a federal implementation plan for Arkansas but did not.  The Sierra Club filed the lawsuit seeking to have a judge require the EPA to issue a plan, as the EPA missed its statutory deadline to act.  The EPA now has a court-ordered deadline.  The EPA is working with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality on a new state plan to implement the regional haze rule in the state.  The deadline for the first phase of compliance is in 2018.