"In a case with ramifications for the Chesapeake Bay, environmental groups have joined with several Northeastern states to challenge the lack of federal action to reduce interstate air pollution.

Earthjustice filed a lawsuit Jan. 30 with four other environmental groups, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision not to order a curb on power plant emissions from inland states that contribute to unhealthful smog in East Coast states like Maryland, New York and Delaware.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation joined the lawsuit, noting that by Bay Program estimates about a third of the nitrogen fouling the Bay’s water comes from the air. Two thirds of that is in the form of nitrogen oxides — much of it from power plants outside the six-state Bay watershed — while the rest is believed to come from ammonia gas largely emitted by animal farming operations within the region."

Timothy B. Wheeler reports for the Bay Journal February 11, 2019. [2]