EPA Inspector General

Did EPA exercise independent judgment, as required by Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), when it determined that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger public health and welfare? Or did the agency improperly outsource its judgment to third-party assessment reports, such as those produced by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?

This is a key bone of contention in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA, a case before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in which petitioners seek to overturn EPA’s GHG regulations.

Tonight (September 30), the Coalition for Responsible Regulation filed a motion asking the Court to “take judicial notice” of the EPA Inspector General’s (IG’s) recent report, Procedural Review of EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding Data Quality Processes, and EPA’s comments thereon (Appendix G). Those comments appear to contradict EPA’s legal position that, in developing the Technical Support Document (TSD) for its Endangerment Rule, EPA conducted an independent review of the science, as required by the statute.  [click to continue…]