Budget Bill Sneaks In End to Air Nuisance Reporting
BY NICK ROGERS
STATEWIDE - House Bill 96, the state’s 3,156-page budget, seeks to end a half century of citizen-led accountability efforts in a single pen stroke. Buried deep within the bill lies a provision to end Citizens’ and watchdog groups’ ability to report and litigate against air quality hazards in Ohio. A lawsuit has been filed seeking to reverse this.
For over 50 years, Rule 3745-15-07 – the “Air pollution nuisances prohibited” rule, has provided Citizens with the opportunity to hold corporate polluters accountable for “The emission or escape into the open air from any source or sources whatsoever, of smoke, ashes, dust, dirt, grime, acids, fumes, gases, vapors, or any other substances or combinations of substances, in such manner or in such amounts as to endanger the health, safety or welfare of the public, or cause unreasonable injury or damage to property…”
With the state’s newest budget bill, the rule has been eliminated, and environmental groups, like Sierra Club (a plaintiff in the suit), are aghast.
Neil Waggoner, Sierra Club’s Midwest Beyond Coal campaign manager, said, “The air nuisance rule is the tool that Ohioans have to hold polluters accountable. This is the state government saying…we’re going to take this away from you in the most secretive fashion possible.”
The long-existing rule – which has been successfully used in past suits against coal fired plants and other industrial polluters not adhering to EPA regulations – was removed in 2020 from the Ohio EPA’s State Implementation Plans (SIP). The organization’s reasoning was that the SIP had not “relied on the rule to implement, maintain, or enforce National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).”
Sierra Club and another current plaintiff, Donna Ballinger – a resident of Middletown, OH – executed a successful challenge, but it wasn’t until February of this year that the rule was reinstated.
“And now here we are with the Ohio legislature attempting to remove it again, when it had already been found to be illegal to do so,” said Miranda Leppla, head of Case Western University’s Environmental Law Clinic (and representative for Sierra Club and Ohio Environmental Council in the suit).
Leppla doubts the EPA’s ability/willingness to enforce air quality standards on their own.
“Both at the federal and state level, we’re seeing less enforcement. If Ohioans don’t have the ability to bring these enforcement actions on their own through the air nuisance rule, there’s a very serious concern that air quality will continue to degrade and Ohioans’ health will get worse.”
The rule, as it has existed, allows local air quality monitoring groups to provide the EPA important “gap-filling data” that regional EPA monitoring centers may miss. HB 96, as it is currently written, disallows EPA collaboration with such local groups.
While the lawsuit proceeds, the plaintiffs in the case have sought a preliminary injunction to keep the rule active.
This all comes during the data center explosion in Ohio; an exponential potential for more pollution.
And, speaking of the EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin recently sought to quell Americans’ fear over atmospheric spraying (geoengineering) operations that may or may not be taking place in the skies above and may or may not be filling the air – and our lungs – with heavy metal nanoparticulates.
“I tasked my team at EPA to compile a list of everything we know about contrails and geoengineering for the purpose of releasing it to you now publicly,” Zeldin said in a clip posted by Donald Trump on Truth Social. “If you’ve looked up in the sky and thought, ‘what the heck is going on?,’ or seen headlines about private actors and even governments looking to blot out the sun in the name of stopping global warming, we've endeavored to answer all of your questions at the links on your screen.”
The EPA has pledged “total transparency” on the topic. So, apparently, the EPA is investigating possible geoengineering operations, and apparently they’ll let us know what the uncover. Phew!
And if HB 96 tells us anything, it’s that the EPA doesn’t need our help to enforce air quality standards. They’ve got it under control and have our best interests at heart, right? Well, as anyone paying any attention to the East Palestine disaster clearly knows, they don’t.
Regarding HB 96, Waggoner points out, “This is fundamentally unrelated to the main purpose of the biennial budget, and it was stuck in here in an intentional way so that folks would not have an opportunity to see it, talk about it, or debate its merits.”
Well, people are talking about it. Do you consent?
