US environmental advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seeking to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from allowing companies to circumvent pollution controls measures required under the Clean Air Act of 1990.

Petitioners include the organizations California Communities Against Toxics, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Integrity Project, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ohio Citizen Action and Sierra Club.

The suit addresses plans by the EPA announced earlier this year to permit industrial firms to reclassify their facilities as “area” sources of pollution rather than “major” sources. "In doing so," said Tomas Carbonell, director of regulatory policy and lead attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, “the companies can avoid complying with the most protective emission standards that EPA has issued to reduce emissions of pollutants like mercury, benzene, arsenic and other dangerous compounds.”

Up to now, the environmental groups explain, the EPA has maintained that the rule is required by its new interpretation of the Clean Air Act, which is in itself controversial.  Under the revised interpretation, once a facility has achieved the required emission reduction, it may be subject to weaker standards or avoid classification altogether.

The intent of the 1990 legislation passed by the US Congress was to make tighter emission controls to be permanent, said Carbonell. However, “under this new loophole, these major sources can avoid those standards entirely and actually increase their emissions up to the point where they would become major sources again."

According an estimate by the Environmental Integrity Project, the loophole would allow a number of large industrial facilities to more than quadruple their emissions of toxic pollutants.

Under the slogan ”Boot Pruitt,” another coalition of environmental groups, including some of the above mentioned, is preparing a multi-pronged campaign to try to remove EPA chief Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator. Components of the campaign include targeted ads on television shows favored by President Donald Trump and his supporters, along with a website. 

The campaigners’ online petition, to be delivered to the EPA and White House, spotlights the complaints: “It’s clear where your priorities lie, Administrator Pruitt – with polluters and your political benefactors, not American families. For your numerous ethical breaches, alarming dirty dealings with polluters and the irreparable damage that you’ve done to our health and environment, you must resign immediately.”

“Even before he took office, we knew that Scott Pruitt was a dangerous appointee. And ever since he was confirmed, he’s proven to be worse than we feared,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “From silencing the voice of scientists to attempting to undermine regulations to protect our air and water to not enforcing regulations, has put forward a reckless agenda that has put our air and our water and our health at risk,” he said.