Earth Protect Blog

A federal court on Monday overturned the Trump administration’s signature environmental policy, a regulation that critics said was aimed at crippling the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to enact new clean air and water protections.

The order by Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana overturned the EPA’s policy, which called for the agency to dismiss or downgrade any studies that did not expose its raw data, sending it back to the agency for revisions, if the new administrator wishes to pursue it.

Dozens of leading medical and scientific groups argued the rule actually would have blocked the EPA from using important studies showing the health consequences of exposure to air pollution and other toxins because those studies often rely on confidential medical data that cannot be released.