On Tuesday, a federal appeals court struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2011 regulation requiring coal-fired power plants to reduce certain harmful emissions. The “good neighbor rule” was designed to protect Eastern residents from polluters in neighboring states. In a 2-1 decision, the District of Columbia鈥檚 U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the agency鈥檚 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) exceeded the EPA鈥檚 mandate and violated state’s rights. The regulation states to “significantly improve air quality by reducing power plant emissions that contribute to ozone and/or fine particle pollution in other states.” In total, 28 states would have been required to reduce sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. The court ordered that the regulation be revised and, in the meantime, told the EPA to administer the 2005 , which CSAPR was meant to replace. The EPA estimated that the regulation would have prevented more than 30,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of illnesses annually. The cost to power plants was estimated at about $800 million per year.
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