EPA Sued by Several Groups for Invasive Species Regulation, Pesticides and Emissions

The first ten days of July have been ugly for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is being sued by a variety of organizations for allegedly not protecting the environment enough.

Recent lawsuits brought against the EPA assert that the group's regulations on invasive species and pesticides are wanting, and a pending lawsuit contends that the group is not doing enough to regulate pollution form coal mines.

Wednesday's news included the EPA being sued by the National Wildlife Federation, which makes the case that the EPA's regulations for dealing with ballast water discharges from ships aren't tough enough. Many of the exotic species that have caused destruction to the Great Lakes and other coastal areas are believed to have arrived in U.S. waters via the dumping of ships' ballast water collected at overseas ports, the Associated Press reports.

A separate lawsuit soon to be brought against the EPA by several environmental groups contends that the EPA - by way of the Obama administration - is refusing to regulate U.S. coal mines as major emitters of the greenhouse gas methane, which has been linked to climate change.

In 2010, Wild Earth Guardians, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups formally petitioned EPA to regulate methane emissions from coal mines, Platts news services reported. In a joint statement the groups reportedly said the coal-mining industry "is one of the largest emitters of methane in the United States."

"This ongoing problem is further intensified by new coal mines opening each year," the groups said in their petition. "In 2003 alone, four new gassy mines opened and began emitting methane into the atmosphere.

National beekeeping organizations, including the American Beekeeping Federation and the National Honey Bee Advisory Board, are also suing the EPA for its approval of the pesticide Sulfoxaflor, which the groups contend is "highly toxic" to honey bees and other insect pollinators vital to the food chain.

Jeff Anderson, a beekeeper and one of the litigants, said, "EPA's approval of Sulfoxaflor with no enforceable label protections for bees will speed our industry's demise," according to the Central Valley Business Times of California.

Lawsuits against the EPA are commonplace, however, and many state officials encourage the organization to not let the threat of lawsuits shape the agency's rules.

In June, attorneys general from 21 states sent a letter to the EPA claiming that threats to sue the agency over its rules for carbon emissions from power plants "have no legal merit" and should be ignored.

"Appropriate process should not be subjugated, and effective policymaking cannot be forced to fruition, by threatening litigation," the attorneys general wrote, according to the political site The Hill.

The EPA did not promptly respond to an email requesting a comment for this article.