Texas Court Vacates Federal Emissions Rule

A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) does not have the authority to issue a recent emissions reduction rule, reports Dan Zukowski in Smart Cities Dive. The lawsuit was brought by the state of Texas. “In a separate lawsuit a group of 21 states filed in Kentucky, the Federal Highway Administration agreed to extend the deadline for states to submit initial CO2 targets and reports until March 29, 2024.”

The argument hinges on Congress’s rejection of a GHG performance measurement when the infrastructure law was first developed, thus “making the Administration’s rulemaking an unlawful attempt to circumvent Congress and force this one-size-fits-all burden upon every state and community across the country,” said Representatives Sam Graves and Rick Crawford in a statement.

Steven Higashide, director of the Clean Transportation Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the rule “adds basic transparency to transportation planning processes that can be hard to understand, and it’s disheartening to see any states fight to make the process more opaque.”