On August 17, Boyden Gray & Associates filed a complaint in the D.C. District Court challenging EPA’s failure to produce documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The documents at issue relate to the design of an EPA fuel effects study known as the EPAct study, which was the basis for EPA’s new vehicular emissions model, MOVES2014. That model’s projections of increased pollution from increased levels of ethanol in fuel are contradicted by numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies showing that ethanol reduces emissions of the same pollutants.
The FOIA request and the new lawsuit were both filed on behalf of Urban Air Initiative and the Energy Future Coalition, who are also co-petitioners with the States of Kansas and Nebraska in a D.C. Circuit challenge to the MOVES2014 model.
Plaintiffs’ original FOIA request was submitted in February 2015 and narrowed in April at EPA’s request. To date, EPA has produced only three out of an estimated 36,000 documents.
- Amanda Peterka, Groups Sue EPA Over Release of Emissions Study Documents, E&E News (Aug. 20, 2015)
- Britain Eakin, EPA Hanky-Panky With Big Oil Hinted at in Records Spat, Courthouse News Service (Aug. 19, 2015)