Coleman, GOP AGs ask U.S. Supreme Court to reverse decision upholding Biden soot pollution limits

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman and other Republican attorneys general are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower federal court’s decision that upheld more stringent air pollution limits established under the former Biden administration. 

Under former President Joe Biden in 2024, the EPA lowered the amount of allowable soot pollution — fine particulate matter emitted into the air from burning fossil fuels through industry, cars and power plants — arguing that it would prevent thousands of premature deaths and save billions in health-related costs through 2032. Industry groups at the time argued the tighter standard would stifle manufacturing. 

The attorneys general along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and industry groups are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by a federal appeals court in June that rebuffed a Trump administration effort to strike down the Biden-era limits. 

In a 52-page petition to the country’s highest court, the attorneys general wrote that Congress did not give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “unbounded discretion” to significantly change air pollution limits known as National Ambient Air Quality Standards outside of a regular five-year review period. 

In a provided statement Friday, Coleman said the attorneys general were “asking the Supreme Court to turn the page of President Biden’s assault on common sense.”

“This regulation was about politics, not public health,” Coleman said. “Alongside my talented colleague, General McCuskey, we’re seeking to break the EPA’s chokehold on our states’ economic potential.”

Coleman and West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey led the petition, and other attorneys general who signed it represent states including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

Such fine particulate matter emitted into the air is small enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the lungs, and studies have linked the pollution to heart attacks, decreased lung function and premature death in people who have heart and lung disease.