By Matthew L. Wald
The New York Times
A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a federal rule that laid out how much air pollution states would have to clean up to avoid incurring violations in downwind states.
The decision sends the Environmental Protection Agency, and perhaps even Congress, back to the drawing board in what has become a long and paralyzing argument over how to mesh a system of state-by-state regulation with the problem of industrial smokestacks pumping pollutants into a single atmosphere.
In a 2-to-1 ruling, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the E.P.A. had exceeded its authority in the way it apportioned the cleanup work among 28 upwind states.
