Summary:

The federal Regional Haze Program should be repealed or at a minimum scaled back dramatically so as to return haze policies to the states as reflected in their respective implementation plans. The clear intent of Congress in the Clean Air Act as amended was to create a system of cooperative federalism for environmental protection, with aesthetic issues left largely to the states in terms of policy formulation. The RHP is inconsistent with both of those objectives. The Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration shunted aside state authority under the regional haze rule for regional haze conditions, with a wholesale imposition of federal implementation plans (FIPs) in place of state implementation plans (SIPs). These actions resulted from a sue-and-settle litigation game in which EPA largely acquiesced to the demands of environmental special interests and ideological groups, while excluding the states from participating in the policy formulation process. Moreover, the actual visibility benefits of the FIPs relative to the SIPs are essentially nonexistent; the actual goal of the FIPs is the shutdown of evermore coal-fired powerplants.