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PHOENIX — A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has slapped down efforts by the state Department of Environmental Quality to enact new regulations of hazardous air pollutants.

The ruling is a victory for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which had filed a lawsuit to overturn the air-quality rules.

Judge Edward Burke said the state agency exceeded its legal authority when it sought to set acceptable emission levels for more than six dozen chemicals. Burke said state lawmakers never gave the agency or DEQ's director, Steve Owens, the power to do any of that.

In fact, Burke said he reads the state statutes to actually prohibit the rules.

The ruling is a major setback for the agency, which has been trying to force businesses to limit the release of these chemicals for years. Owens promised to appeal.

At issue are various chemicals that Owens said all are highly toxic, with effects ranging from blood disorders to birth defects and cancer.

The DEQ rules require companies to install new pollution control equipment every time they start, expand or alter operations if that would result in anything but a minimal increase in any of those 73 toxic chemicals on the state's list. These range from arsenic and metals produced by high-tech manufacturers to volatile organic compounds used for everything from circuit-board manufacturing to mining.

The state Chamber of Commerce and Oak Canyon Manufacturing, one of its members, filed a suit challenging the rules more than a year ago.

David Armstrong, the chamber and Oak Canyon's lead attorney in the case, claimed the rules are "based on extreme and unrealistic assumptions" about public exposure to hazardous air pollutants.

He said the standards used by DEQ are based on "assumptions that members of the public reside inside industrial private property virtually around the clock for 30 years." He added that those rules also presume "that the wind continuously blows federal hazardous air pollutant emissions directly toward those fictitious full-time on-site residents."

Owens rejected arguments that the regulations are based on false assumptions of what might hurt people.

"It's a gross misrepresentation of what the science is behind the HAPs (hazardous air pollutants) rules we promulgated," Owens said.

But Burke said the case turned not on the danger of the chemicals or the merits of the regulations, but instead on the wording of the law.

Federal law regulates the pollutants on DEQ's list only when a source emits at least 10 tons a year. A 1992 state statute does give DEQ permission to establish standards for companies with emissions as low as 1 ton per year.

But that law also says DEQ is entitled to establish "de minimis" amounts for air pollutants — at what point a small change triggers regulation — for chemicals that are not federally regulated. By adopting that language, Burke said lawmakers intended to deny DEQ the authority to enact rules for chemicals on the federal list, the ones that Owens and DEQ sought to regulate.

Owens disagreed..

He said DEQ always had authority to regulate hazardous pollutants, whether on the federal list or not. The only thing the 1992 law did, Owens said, is mandate that the state set de minimis amounts for those not on the federal list.

Owens said that made sense at the time, as it was presumed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would handle those on the federal list. As it turns out, he said, the federal agency never followed through.

Burke, however, said Owens' reading of the law is disputed by the Legislature itself when, in 2006, lawmakers approved a bill to specifically give DEQ the power to adopt de minimis amounts for federally regulated chemicals. In fact, that measure contained a specific "statement of purpose" saying it would "grant statutory authority for the first time" for such regulations.

Owens maintained that legislative statement sets no legal precedent, saying it was crafted by industry lobbyists who were already trying to limit his agency's authority.

And that measure never became law after Owens persuaded Gov. Janet Napolitano to veto the measure, at least in part based on his contention that DEQ already had that authority.