EPA Sued for Failure to Enforce Noise Control Act

June 16, 2023

On June 7, 2023, Quiet Communities Inc., a non-profit dedicated to addressing the adverse impacts of noise and pollution, and Jeanne Kempthorne, a retired federal prosecutor, sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failure to enforce existing noise laws. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The attorneys who submitted the court documents on behalf of the claimants are based in Seattle, Washington: Jeffrey Feldman with the Summit Law Group along with Sanne Knudsen and Erica Proulx from the University of Washington School of Law Regulatory Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.

As stated in the case filing (pgs. 1–2)

1. This is a suit to compel the United States Environmental Protection Agency...and its Administrator to take actions mandated by the United States Congress in enacting the Noise Control Act..., as amended to protect public health and the environment from harmful noise pollution.
2. Forty-one years ago, in 1982, EPA shut down the Office of Noise Abatement and Control, the Noise Enforcement Division of the Office of Mobile Source and Noise Enforcement, and ten regional noise programs, and abandoned its duties under the Noise Control Act.
3. As a result noise pollution has gone unstudied and unregulated by EPA - for four decades - contrary to Congressional commands that require otherwise.
4. EPA’s failure to act and its unreasonably delayed and unlawfully withheld actions violate the Noise Control Act and Administrative Procedure Act, respectively. Quiet Communities Inc. and Jeanne M. Kempthorne seek nothing more in this action than to compel EPA to perform its non-discretionary statutory duties as lawfully imposed by Congress under the Act.

This 6/13/2023 Berkshire Eagle article provides additional information - The EPA Stopped Studying the Health Effects of Noise Pollution 40 Years Ago, Now a Pittsfield Woman is Suing the Agency.