Feb. 9

The Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Feb. 4 accusing the U.S. EPA of violating its duty to review and update its emission standards for nitric acid plants, which produce chemicals used in the fertilizer and explosives industries.

The Clean Air Act requires the agency to update the standards every eight years, and EPA is already more than 16 years late, according to the lawsuit. The EIP and the Sierra Club are represented by the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic at the Vermont Law School.

Nitric acid plants generate nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 310 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The EIP and Sierra Club said in a statement they hope the information developed during the review will persuade the EPA to start regulating nitric oxide emissions.

E-mail Waste News senior reporter Bruce Geiselman at bgeiselman@crain.com

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