Eighteen AGs Filed Petition for Review of EPA’s Clean Air Act Cost-Benefit Distortion Rule

JANUARY 19, 2021

New York Attorney General Letitia James led a coalition of 18 attorneys general in filing a petition for review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule that distorts cost-benefit analyses of Clean Air Act regulations. Among other changes, the rule heavily discounts the consideration of co-benefits, including the often enormous public health benefits that result from reductions in pollutants not directly targeted by a regulation. State AGs previously filed comments warning that restrictions are based on a “false premise that uniformity across these disparate provisions is lawful and possible.” The comments also highlighted the rule’s “impracticable and unlawful” treatment of co-benefits, and its “woefully inadequate” discussion of greenhouse gas emissions and the social cost of carbon — a particularly glaring gap given the EPA’s “demonstrated lack of transparency and consistency” in this area.