Federal judge delays implementation of last-minute Trump Administration EPA rule News
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Federal judge delays implementation of last-minute Trump Administration EPA rule

A Montana federal district court judge on Wednesday ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) implementation of a rule published in the waning days of the Trump Administration.

Judge Brian Morris held that the rule could not take immediate effect because the agency had violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) in determining the rule could be effective on publication. The rule limits the weight the EPA can afford to scientific studies that use “non-public dose-response data,” that is, data from studies that involve human subjects and are therefore subject to privacy rules that prevent public disclosure.

Three public interest groups, the Environmental Defense Fund, Montana Environmental Information Center, and Citizens for Clean Energy, filed an expedited complaint with the court on January 11, asking that the rule’s effective enforcement date be delayed until 30 days after the rule had been published on the Federal Register, as required by the APA. They argued that the agency did not have good cause to implement the rule immediately and that by doing so, it acted arbitrarily and capriciously. The rule, they wrote, “threatens confidence in EPA decision-making by inhibiting the agency’s consideration of the best available scientific evidence.”

Judge Morris agreed that the agency lacked cause to ignore the APA’s 30-day notice requirement, writing that the EPA itself “took more than two-and-one-half years to finalize this regulation,” demonstrating there was no urgent need to implement the rule immediately. The judge also determined that the EPA’s rule was a substantive rule rather than a procedural one which “casts into significant doubt whether EPA retains any legal basis to promulgate the Final Rule” in the first place. However, since the plaintiffs sought expedited relief only on the issue of implementation, he refrained from ruling on the legality of the rule itself.