NRDC Challenges EPA’s Free Pass to Cleveland Polluters 

CLEVELAND –  NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for letting some of Cleveland's biggest industrial polluters off the hook with dangerously weak smog standards. The agency ignored the companies' own studies showing that stronger, affordable cleanup technology is available, and cited cost of controls to excuse giving industry a pass.

"EPA had a choice between corporate convenience and Clevelanders' lungs, and it chose to prioritize polluters’ bottom lines,” said Abi Vijayan, senior climate attorney at NRDC. “The technology to cut this pollution exists, it's affordable, and the law requires it. This is an abandonment of the EPA’s most basic duty."

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, challenges EPA's approval of Ohio's "reasonably available control technology" plan for the Cleveland area. The Clean Air Act requires that existing major polluters in areas with unhealthy air install the strongest cleanup technology that is reasonably affordable. Instead, the EPA rubber-stamped the status quo, relying on the companies' own studies while ignoring the stronger controls those very studies support. NRDC is asking the court to vacate EPA's approval and require pollution limits that genuinely reduce emissions, backed by the real reporting and public accountability the law demands.

The lawsuit covers pollution limits for 10 major industrial facilities across the Cleveland area — including Cleveland-Cliffs' Cleveland Works, PPG Industries, Lubrizol, Henkel, and Owens Corning — that together are allowed to keep running on weak or unverifiable pollution limits while the region's smog problem continues.

The EPA approved Ohio's plan without ever assessing how much pollution the stronger technologies it rejected would actually cut. And the companies' own numbers show significant reductions are possible with minor investments. Under the EPA’s decision, the facilities are not required to report how much pollution they actually emitted, and none of that information is made available to the public, as the Clean Air Act explicitly requires.

NRDC is tracking every step of the Trump administration's attacks on public health and the environment. Go to White House Watch for the comprehensive list of these attacks. To subscribe to our weekly newsletter, email jbar@nrdc.org.

NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health, and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).