EHL’s 18-month effort to monitor the compliance of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) Regional Transportation Plan with federal clean air law has led to a lawsuit by EHL and other groups.

The lawsuit challenges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the Motor Vehicle Emissions Budgets. Through EHL’s research, it was shown that methods used to create the Budgets ignore elevated concentrations of highly toxic fine particles found near freeways—affecting nearly 1.5 million people. This means that the recently approved 2008 Regional Transportation Plan may be legally defective and ineligible for federal funding.

EHL and its partners hope to incentivize the region to invest in clean, efficient and sustainable transportation for the movement of goods and people—particularly in the densely populated areas near the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—as well as in the burgeoning “inland ports” of the Inland Empire. Creating healthful cities and towns is an essential corollary to our primary mission: the preservation of our wild spaces. EHL is represented by Staff Attorney Michael Fitts.