DENVER— Environmental and public health groups filed a motion Thursday to join a federal lawsuit defending the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to strengthen clean air safeguards in northeastern Utah’s Uinta Basin.

“We’re fighting back against greedy polluters asking the court for a get-out-of-jail-free pass to keep poisoning the air Utahns breathe,” said Ryan Maher, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Trump administration’s fixation with dismantling bedrock environmental laws and thrusting the door open for toxic industries means it’s up to us to help defend clean, breathable air in court.”

In 2024 the EPA found that the Uinta Basin, a large oil and gas extraction region, exceeded health-based limits for toxic ground-level ozone, the key ingredient of smog. The decision requires the state of Utah to develop a stronger clean air plan and reduce pollution in the region.

The Utah Petroleum Association, joined by the state of Utah, several Utah counties and Ute Tribe oil and gas interests, sued in federal appeals court to overturn the EPA’s decision. The motion to intervene asks the court to allow the environmental and public health groups to join the EPA in fighting the lawsuit and defending clean air for the Uinta Basin.

"Clean air in the Uinta Basin continues to be undermined by unchecked fossil fuel extraction, putting people and communities at risk. Ozone pollution can have broad adverse health effects, including destroying lung tissue, and even causing failed pregnancies and still births, said Jonny Vasic, executive director of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. "We won't sit back and let the oil and gas industry and its cronies in Utah state government fight to put polluters ahead of our health."

Ozone in the Uinta Basin has soared to levels normally experienced in big cities, the result of unchecked oil and gas extraction. Drilling, fracking, pipelines and tanker trucks in the region release enormous amounts of pollution, including volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide gases.

A poisonous gas, even at very low levels ozone is a serious respiratory irritant that can harm lungs, trigger asthma attacks, worsen lung disease and cause premature death.

"This intervention is about defending the Uinta Basin from the oil and gas industry's relentless push to despoil the region's air, waters and lands for its own profit," said John Weisheit, conservation director for Living Rivers. "The Uinta Basin's smog problem won't go away unless and until the industry stops getting a free pass to pollute."

Plans to construct a new oil railroad in the Uinta Basin could quintuple oil production and worsen air quality. The Uinta Basin railway, which was blocked by a federal court in 2023, is still under consideration as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs approval.

In 2018 the Uinta Basin was declared a “dirty air” area under the Clean Air Act because of unhealthy ozone. The region has continued to suffer from high pollution. Under the federal Clean Air Act, the EPA was required to find the Uinta Basin failed to comply with ozone health standards, a finding that triggered stronger clean air safeguards.

More information about the Center’s fight against air pollution is available at Protecting Air Quality Under the Clean Air Act.