Lawsuit attacks Ohio legislature for including air pollution provisions in state budget – Cleveland.com

Report on Legal Challenge to Ohio’s Environmental Legislation and its Conflict with Sustainable Development Goals

1.0 Executive Summary

A lawsuit has been filed by environmental advocacy groups, including the Ohio Environmental Council and the Sierra Club, against the State of Ohio and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The suit alleges that recent legislative changes, embedded within the state budget, unconstitutionally strip citizens of their ability to combat air pollution. These actions directly contravene several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those concerning public health, sustainable communities, and access to justice.

2.0 Analysis of Legislative Actions

The core of the legal challenge centers on provisions within the state budget that fundamentally alter environmental oversight and citizen participation. These changes present significant obstacles to achieving key sustainability targets.

1. Repeal of the Air Nuisance Rule: The state budget mandates the repeal of a critical regulation that empowered citizens, especially those in “fenceline communities” adjacent to industrial sites, to hold polluters accountable for harmful emissions.
2. Invalidation of Citizen-Collected Data: A new provision renders air quality data collected by citizens using accessible, affordable monitors inadmissible in regulatory or legal proceedings. Only data from prohibitively expensive, EPA-grade equipment is now considered valid.
3. Alleged Constitutional Violation: The lawsuit claims these environmental policy changes violate the Ohio constitution’s “one-subject rule,” which requires legislation to address a single topic. By including these measures in a budget bill, they were passed without dedicated public debate or scrutiny.

3.0 Conflict with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The legislative changes enacted by the State of Ohio are in direct opposition to the principles and objectives of the global Sustainable Development Goals.

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being: By removing the Air Nuisance Rule and limiting the ability of communities to monitor local air quality, the state’s actions undermine efforts to reduce illnesses and deaths from hazardous chemicals and air pollution. This disproportionately affects vulnerable populations living near industrial polluters.
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: The legislation impedes progress toward Target 11.6, which aims to reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by improving air quality. Disempowering communities from monitoring their own environment makes it more difficult to create safe, resilient, and sustainable human settlements.
• SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: The actions challenge the foundations of this goal.
  • Access to Justice: Creating prohibitive financial barriers to collecting admissible evidence (requiring monitors costing upwards of $50,000) effectively denies citizens access to environmental justice.
  • Effective and Accountable Institutions: The lawsuit’s claim that lawmakers bypassed the standard legislative process by using a budget bill suggests a weakening of accountable and transparent governance.

4.0 Community-Level Impact: A Case Study

The direct consequences of these legislative changes are evident in communities like Youngstown, Ohio. Residents there have utilized affordable PurpleAir monitors to track local pollution from industrial sources. The nearest official EPA monitor is three miles away, potentially failing to capture localized pollution events. Under the new provisions, the data collected by these residents is now legally worthless for enforcement purposes, leaving them without a key tool to protect their health and advocate for a cleaner environment, thereby hindering the localization of SDG 3 and SDG 11.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Addressed in the Article

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

  The article directly addresses public health concerns related to air pollution. The fight to maintain the “Air Nuisance Rule” and the use of community air monitors are efforts to protect citizens, especially those in “fenceline communities,” from the harmful health effects of industrial emissions.

• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

  The core issue revolves around the environmental quality of communities, particularly those adjacent to industrial sites. The article highlights the struggle of residents to monitor and improve their local air quality, which is a key component of creating safe, resilient, and sustainable urban and community environments.

• SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

  The article is centered on a legal challenge against state actions, touching on themes of access to justice, transparent governance, and public participation. The lawsuit alleges that lawmakers used unconstitutional means to strip citizens of their right to hold polluters accountable, undermining fair and effective institutions.

Specific SDG Targets Identified

1. Target 3.9: By 2030, substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination.

   This target is central to the article’s theme. The environmental groups’ lawsuit aims to restore protections against air pollution, which directly causes illnesses. The article mentions citizens’ efforts to document “harmful pollution levels” to protect their health, aligning perfectly with the goal of reducing illness from air pollution.

2. Target 11.6: By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality.

   The article focuses on the efforts of communities, like the one in Youngstown, to manage and mitigate the adverse environmental impact of local industries. The repeal of the “Air Nuisance Rule” and the invalidation of citizen-collected air quality data are direct setbacks to achieving this target, as they remove tools used to monitor and improve urban air quality.

3. Target 16.3: Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all.

   The lawsuit itself is an attempt to uphold the rule of law by challenging a legislative act as unconstitutional. Furthermore, the article explains that the new rules create prohibitive costs for residents to gather admissible evidence, effectively denying them “equal access to justice” to challenge polluters in court or regulatory proceedings.

4. Target 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels.

   The article claims that lawmakers embedded the environmental policy changes within a budget bill to “push through the controversial changes without public debate.” This action directly contradicts the principle of inclusive and participatory decision-making. The “Air Nuisance Rule” and citizen monitoring were key tools for public participation in environmental governance, and their removal undermines this target.

Indicators for Measuring Progress

1. Indicator 11.6.2: Annual mean levels of fine particulate matter (e.g. PM2.5 and PM10) in cities (population weighted).

   This indicator is implicitly referenced through the discussion of air quality monitoring. The article mentions that residents in Youngstown use “PurpleAir” monitors to “gauge pollution levels.” These devices are specifically designed to measure particulate matter, which is the basis of this indicator. The state’s action to make data from such monitors inadmissible directly impacts the ability of communities to contribute to the measurement and management of this indicator.

2. Indicator 16.3.3: Proportion of the population who have experienced a dispute in the past two years and who accessed a formal or informal dispute resolution mechanism, by type of mechanism.

   The lawsuit filed by the Ohio Environmental Council and Sierra Club is a direct example of accessing a formal dispute resolution mechanism (the court system) to address a grievance against the state government. The article is a report on this specific action, which serves as a data point for this indicator.

Summary Table of SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: cleveland.com