Reference no: EM131224982

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA can regulate gasoline additions if they “endanger the public welfare.” Scientific evidence showed that lead emissions from gasoline constituted 90 percent of all the lead in the air and that this lead could be absorbed into the body. The EPA promulgated regulations requiring a step-by-step reduction of the lead content of gasoline. Gasoline manufacturers challenged the EPA’s rulemaking procedure, claiming that it was arbitrary and capricious because the evidence supporting the agency’s decision was unsound. They claimed that air was only one of several sources of the lead absorbed by the body. The EPA argued that the evidence it had marshaled was sufficient to justify the regulations. Arbitrary and capricious is short for “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law”. Was arbitrary and capricious the best challenge for the gasoline manufacturers to bring? Why or why not? Would one of the other four legal challenges maybe have worked better? Why or why not?