Air

Tracking the latest agency and congressional debates over rules to cut emissions of traditional pollutants, and a broad range of novel EPA policies including the agency's shift to a "multipollutant" regulatory approach for individual sectors.

Topic Subtitle
Tracking the latest agency and congressional debates over rules to cut emissions of traditional pollutants, and a broad range of novel EPA policies including the agency's shift to a "multipollutant" regulatory approach for individual sectors.

Environmentalists Tout Cumulative Benefits Of Power Sector Rule Package

Environmentalists are highlighting the importance of EPA’s pending release of a package of rules addressing various environmental media at power plants, pointing to the correlation between pollution reductions from each media and the benefits of cumulative action to address it despite potential shortfalls in the agency’s enforcement bandwidth. During an April 23 briefing, lawyers at Earthjustice and other groups touted the benefits of EPA’s imminent release of its final rules to address legacy coal combustion residuals (CCR) surface impoundments and...

Industry, Environmentalists Clash On CASAC’s NAAQS Review Advice

Industry groups are rejecting draft advice from EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) that calls for more in-depth reviews of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), saying this would worsen EPA’s delays in completing reviews. “CASAC’s recommended changes to the NAAQS review process are inappropriate, unnecessary, and unwise. They could limit the value of the Committee’s advice to the Administrator during a NAAQS review and further impede timely completion of such a review. CASAC should focus on undertaking the...

EPA Wins Support For Legal Strategy In Louisiana Civil Rights Lawsuit

Louisiana environmental justice (EJ) advocates and other observers are generally backing EPA’s strategy to concede its loss of authority to enforce “disparate impacts” under civil rights law in Louisiana, saying officials understand the severity of the situation when they opted not to appeal a preliminary injunction preventing disparate impact enforcement. Joy Banner, co-founder and co-director of the Descendants Project, which seeks to help the Black descendant communities in Louisiana river parishes, tells Inside EPA that it makes sense that...

Industry, Environmentalists Clash Ahead Of Power Sector Rules’ Release

Industry and environmentalists are clashing ahead of EPA’s imminent release of a suite of new rules governing power sector emissions, including tougher standards for mercury and other air toxics, new greenhouse gas standards, stricter effluent limits for wastewater discharges and first-time requirements for unregulated coal ash storage sites. Industry groups, many of which are especially concerned about the rules’ combined effects, are widely expected to challenge the rules, which are slated for release at an April 25 event in Washington,...

Biden Officials Finish Drove Of Climate Change Policies In Regulatory Blitz

EPA and other agency officials are hurrying to complete a suite of high-profile climate rules that could slash billions of tons of carbon emissions and help shape the Biden administration’s first-term legacy, with EPA poised to finish the last of its flagship greenhouse gas standards for major sectors of the economy. Completion of the climate rules comes as EPA is also scrambling to finish a variety of non-climate policies limiting toxic chemicals, hazardous air pollutants and water releases. Underscoring the...

EPA agrees to deadlines for action on ‘numerous’ air plans

EPA has reached a proposed consent decree with environmentalists to take overdue final action approving or disapproving “numerous” revisions to state implementation plans (SIPs) for Clean Air Act compliance in several Southern states, relating to permitting, ozone limits, interstate air pollution, regional haze and other issues. In a notice scheduled for publication in the Federal Register April 23, EPA announces the decree that would settle litigation brought against the agency in the U.S. District Court for the District of...

EPA will weigh fenceline monitors for battery plants

EPA will rethink its decision to deny environmentalists’ calls to require fenceline air monitoring for lead-acid battery manufacturing plants in a limited reconsideration of its February 2023 air toxics rule for the sector, after a federal appeals court granted the agency’s request for a voluntary remand to address their novel argument for such monitors. In a brief April 19 order , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted EPA’s Feb. 16 motion for a narrow...

EPA Issues ‘Emergency’ Waiver To Make E15 Fuel Available This Summer

Citing conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East as justification, EPA has issued another “emergency” Clean Air Act waiver allowing summertime sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15), enabling sales of the fuel to continue in the two-thirds of the country where they would otherwise be blocked by federal fuel regulations and judicial precedent. “Under President Biden’s leadership, EPA is taking action to protect Americans from fuel supply challenges resulting from ongoing conflict overseas by ensuring consumers have more choices...

Environmentalists Urge EPA To Scrap Plan For Narrow Air Permit Review

Environmental groups are pressing EPA to scrap its plan to codify a narrow view of Title V air permit reviews that they say contravenes the “plain language and purpose” of the Clean Air Act, blocking both the agency and private citizens from scrutinizing the terms of underlying new source review (NSR) pre-construction permits. “EPA’s proposed rule would codify a Trump-era policy that represents a dramatic and ahistorical change of course from the Clean Air Act’s Title V provisions and EPA’s...

CBD signals likely lawsuit over secondary NAAQS plan

EPA’s plan to leave “secondary” national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) largely unchanged, without requirements for emissions reductions, appears headed for likely litigation should the agency finalize the rule as proposed, with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) criticizing the plan’s lack of endangered species analysis. “The EPA is required to assess harms to endangered species when it sets pollution standards,” said Ryan Maher, a staff attorney for CBD, in an April 15 statement. “Air pollution standards must protect endangered...

Republican-led States File Court Challenge To EPA MY27-32 Auto Limits

Over two dozen GOP-led states are quickly filing suit over EPA’s vehicle emissions standards for model year 2027-2032, beginning long-expected litigation against the rule from both states and likely liquid fuel groups as the 60-day window begins for challenges to the rule. The April 18 petition for review , led by Kentucky and West Virginia and joined by 23 other states, was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the same day that...

Steel Groups Sue EPA Over Electric Arc Furnaces NSPS Rule ‘Correction’

Steel industry groups are filing suit over EPA’s February rule correcting errors in the agency’s recently revised new source performance standards (NSPS) for electric arc furnaces (EAFs) used in steel recycling, combining their new lawsuit with existing litigation over the regulations that industry associations fault as “infeasible.” The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Steel Manufacturers Association, and Specialty Steel Industry of North America in an April 15 lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of...

EIP’s Schaeffer To Retire, Driving Leadership Change At Enforcement Group

Eric Schaeffer, a former EPA civil enforcement chief, is poised to retire May 25 as executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the enforcement-focused group he founded in 2002 after leaving the agency due to concerns about the Bush administration’s policies undercutting enforcement of the new source review (NSR) program. “I’d say only that while I haven’t lost my passion for the work we do, I’ve had more than my share of opportunities and it’s time to give someone...

GOP Governors Seek To Pause PM NAAQS Compliance, Ease Implementation

A coalition of 22 Republican governors is urging EPA to pause implementation of its recently strengthened national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter PM2.5, and to issue improved tools to ease compliance, including better air modeling, de minimis pollution thresholds, wildfire waivers and exemptions for foreign pollution. “Setting aside the legal concerns we have about the final rule, the new standard poses significant challenges for our states and ignores the progress made in reducing particulate matter...

Environmentalists Press EPA To Further Tighten Waste Combustor Plan

Environmental and public health groups are pushing EPA to toughen its proposal to cut air emissions from large municipal waste combustors (LMWCs), calling it a “welcome, if overdue, step in the right direction,” but saying that “the Clean Air Act compels EPA to go even further” to cut emissions of PFAS and other harmful pollutants. Environmental groups and community organizations have long targeted the large waste combustors as a source requiring tougher regulation, given concerns over toxic air emissions’ impacts...

States Fault Public Notice Mandate In EPA’s Narrow Air Permit Review Plan

States are faulting a key public notice mandate in EPA’s proposal limiting federal review of Clean Air Act Title V air operating permits, a plan they otherwise mostly support, saying the provision is unclear and lacks statutory authority, confusing an already complex regulatory regime and unnecessarily reopening underlying permits to review. In recent comments, regulators from across the spectrum echoed early industry arguments that EPA lacks legal authority to object to some permits on the grounds of insufficient opportunity for...

4th Circuit denies EPA’s request for ‘good neighbor’ SIP case rehearing

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has denied EPA’s petition for rehearing of its split ruling against dismissing or transferring to the D.C. Circuit litigation over the agency’s disapproval of West Virginia’s plan for curbing interstate ozone, rejecting the agency’s bid on procedural grounds. In a brief April 16 order , the 4th Circuit in State of West Virginia denies EPA’s petition for rehearing of the case by the full court sitting en banc because...

D.C. Circuit Panel Doubts EPA Basis For RFS Refinery Waiver Denials

Correction Appended Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appear to doubt EPA’s basis for denying dozens of economic hardship waivers for small refineries from renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance, questioning the agency’s cost “passthrough” theory and specifically its requirement for “ratable” surrender of RFS credits. At oral argument April 16 in Sinclair Wyoming Refining, et al. v. EPA, et al., Judges Nina Pillard, Neomi Rao and Florence Pan pressed attorneys for...

GOP AGs Warn Of ‘Significant’ Litigation Over EPA’s Waste Combustors Plan

Republican attorneys general (AG) are strongly opposing EPA’s plan to cut air emissions from large municipal waste combustors, backing industry arguments that the proposal is unjustified, expensive and unlawful and will face “a significant amount of litigation” in part because of the agency’s failure to complete a “residual risk” review. While some municipalities are also warning of negative impacts from the plan, Northeastern air regulators are broadly supporting the proposal. In a March 25 letter to EPA, Indiana AG Todd...

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