Uncooperative Federalism: EPA Issues 51st Clean Air Act FIP of the Obama Age

by William Yeatman on July 3, 2014

in Blog

Last Friday, EPA issued a pre-publication version of the agency’s 51st regulatory takeover of a state Clean Air Act program, also known as a Federal Implementation Plan (“FIP”). This time, the victim was Arizona. To be precise, the agency imposed visibility improvement requirements, known as Regional Haze, on at a number of stationary sources in Arizona, including: Tucson Electric Power’s Sundt Generating Station Unit 4, Lhoist North America’s Nelson Lime Plant Kilns 1 and 2, ASARCO Inc.’s Hayden Smelter, Freeport-McMoran Inc.’s Miami Smelter, Phoenix Cement Co.’s Clarkdale Plant Kiln 4 and CalPortland Cement’s Rillito Plant Kiln 4. Compliance will cost the affected entities millions of dollars; the “benefits,” alas, are apparitional. The regulation won’t engender a discernible improvement in visibility.

Below, I’ve provided an ongoing analysis compiled by globalwarming.org, of Clean Air Act FIPs rendered by each of the last four Presidents. As is rendered clear by the chart, President Obama has taken a very different view of Clean Air Act cooperative federalism than has his predecessors. Evidently, Obama’s is the age of uncooperative federalism.

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