Nucor Steel-Arkansas and Nucor-Yamato Steel Co. do not qualify to intervene in a lawsuit between the Sierra Club and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, attorneys for the Sierra Club argued in a response filed Friday.
Attorneys for the Sierra Club asked that the federal judge over the case dismiss Nucor Steel's motion to intervene.
Nucor Steel filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, which had been settled, May 1.
In 2014, the Sierra Club sued the EPA to get the federal agency to issue a federal implementation plan for Clean Air Act haze standards approved in 1999 by Congress.
The groups eventually settled, with the EPA agreeing to come up with a plan by March.
Attorneys for Nucor Steel argued that the company had standing to intervene because of the additional costs the company would be subjected to as a high electricity consumer as a result of the plan.
The plan calls for significant reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants across the state that would likely require $1 billion or more in infrastructure investments on the plants or the closure of some plants.
Attorneys for Nucor Steel also argued May 1 that the Sierra Club and the EPA improperly skirted the regular process of rule-making and "colluded" in settling the lawsuit because both parties stood to gain from the settlement.
On Friday, attorneys for the Sierra Club argued that Nucor Steel's rights were not being impaired by the case and that its intervention was "untimely," as the federal implementation plan had already been issued. The attorneys also argued that the Sierra Club can't ask a court to dictate the EPA's procedures.
Attorneys noted that the lawsuit and settlement did not revolve around the substance of the EPA plan but merely required that the EPA have a plan.
"Courts have repeatedly held that concerns about the potential substantive outcome of EPA's performance of a mandatory duty do not amount to protectable interests justifying intervention in a citizen suit that merely seeks a deadline for completion of that duty," attorneys for the Sierra Club wrote in Friday's filing.
Metro on 05/22/2015