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The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on Friday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must follow the law and implement the strengthened health-based 2024 National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution, commonly known as soot. The court rejected EPA’s arguments for slow-walking implementation of the health-protective soot standard and ordered that EPA officially identify the areas that violate the 2024 standard by Feb. 6, 2027. This court ruling follows on last month’s ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upholding the 2024 soot standard after this administration’s EPA requested that the court strike it down.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to designate areas that violate the strengthened 2024 soot standard. Those designations are what put communities with unhealthy levels of soot pollution on a path to cleaner air, but EPA missed its legal deadline earlier this year. In response, 17 health, community and environmental groups filed a lawsuit to compel EPA to implement the life-saving strengthened soot standard.
