WASHINGTON (WAVY) — The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and 11 other organizations partnered to sue the Trump administration for illegally rolling back clean car and fuel economy standards on Wednesday.
A statement released on behalf of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said “The administration’s rule is based on massive technical and economic errors and fails to meet core legal requirements.”
According to the foundation, allowing carbon dioxide emissions to increase will dramatically impact the Bay region by intensifying the issues the area is already dealing with including economic, environmental, and climate change-related hardships.
In addition, the CBF reports that nearly “one-third of nitrogen pollution in the Bay comes from the air, much of it in the form of nitrogen oxides released from auto exhaust and power plants.”
The Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint includes a specific goal to curb emissions by 2025 as the Environmental Protection Agency has recognized the urgency in reducing air pollution to restoring the Bay.
“Clean cars are essential to a clean Chesapeake Bay. Allowing dirtier vehicles on the road undermines efforts to restore the Bay and makes the watershed more vulnerable to climate change,” said CBF Attorney Ariel Solaski. “The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is committed to continuing the fight to save the Bay and the local rivers and streams that feed into it in court.”
The partnership for this lawsuit was between the Center for Biological Diversity, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Communities for a Better Environment, Conservation Law Foundation, Consumer Federation of America, Environment America, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Law and Policy Center, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Public Citizen, Inc., Sierra Club and Union of Concerned Scientists.