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.

EPA Science Advisors Urge NAAQS Process Revision, Eye New Pollutants

EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) is moving to adopt a recommendation for the agency to return to a more comprehensive process to review federal air standards that would weigh wider policy options and provide more opportunities for revision of key documents, while also calling for EPA to consider limits for new pollutants. At an April 25 meeting, members of the seven-member panel considered a draft letter crafted by committee Chair Elizabeth Sheppard, a University of Washington environmental professor,...

Power Sector Rules Bring ‘Modest And Manageable’ Grid Effects, EPA Says

Compliance with EPA’s just-completed power plant greenhouse gas requirements and several other new rules for the sector will impose relatively few risks to adequate power supply, the agency says in new analysis, offering a rebuttal to attacks from industry and their allies that the rules will spark major reliability problems. Even though some utilities may run their fossil fuel-fired plants less often or shutter them altogether rather than install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to comply with the GHG...

TSD On GHG Rule’s Resource Effects

TSD On Power Plant Rules’ Resource Effects


MATS Update Tightens Air Toxics, Mercury Limits In Line With Proposal

EPA’s final rule updating mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for power plants hews closely to the proposed version, cutting a mercury limit for plants using lignite coal to that applicable to other coal plants, and tightening a limit for particulate matter (PM) as a “surrogate” for other metals by two-thirds, with officials projecting no plant closures from the rule. The rule , released April 25 as part of a broader package of EPA measures for power plants, adopts EPA’s...

EPA defends wildfire exception allowing Detroit to attain ozone standard

EPA is strongly defending its decision to apply its exceptional event policy in Detroit and allow the city to meet the 2015 national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone by disregarding exceedances recorded over two days in June of 2022 which the state said was due to wildfire smoke from Canada. In an April 23 brief in Sierra Club v. EPA, et al., in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, the agency says it “reasonably...

EPA Denial Of Turbine Air Toxics Petition ‘With Prejudice’ Bars Repeat Effort

EPA’s recent decision to deny “with prejudice” a longstanding industry petition to “delist” stationary combustion turbines as a regulated source of air toxics under the Clean Air Act appears to foreclose any near-term industry effort to again push for such a step, raising the bar for future deregulatory efforts in the sector and potentially setting a precedent for other petition responses. In its April 16 denial of the petition, the agency says it is “denying the petition with prejudice and...

EPA Defends ‘Forward-Looking’ Power Plant GHG Standards Based On CCS

EPA in just-finalized power plant greenhouse gas standards is offering a broad defense of its key finding that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an “adequately demonstrated” technology that can serve as the basis for strict standards in the rule, outlining the agency’s stance in one of the most prominent issues that will be raised in litigation. Critically, EPA asserts that “the case law interpreting section 111 [of the Clean Air Act] has also recognized that the [rule’s standard-setting formula]...

EPA Releases Regulatory Text Of Four Power Plant Standards

EPA has posted regulatory text for its four just-finalized power plant air, climate, water, and waste standards, outlining detailed new requirements for existing coal plants and newly constructed natural gas-fired facilities under several statutes. Agency officials have argued the sector will easily be able to implement those mandates, in part because the agency has coordinated their various requirements and added new provisions to preserve grid reliability. White House officials are also stressing several actions by other agencies to ease deployment...

Federal STB Raises Legal Doubts Over EPA Waiver For CARB Locomotive Rule

The federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) is raising legal doubts about whether EPA should waive Clean Air Act (CAA) preemption to allow California’s air board to implement a novel rule aimed at cutting pollution from existing locomotives, saying the policy may be preempted by the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 (ICCTA). “To the extent authorization under” section 209(e)(2) of the CAA “would give the Regulation or parts of it the ‘force and effect of federal law,’ EPA should...

Biden Officials Tout Power Sector’s Ability To Meet Suite Of New EPA Rules

Biden administration officials are mounting an early defense of EPA’s four just-finalized air, climate, water, and waste standards for power plants, saying the sector will easily be able to implement them in part because the agency has coordinated their various requirements and added new provisions to preserve grid reliability. The suite of standards “will allow for the utilities to look at a consolidated planning process to meet the environmental objectives of each of these separate actions,” a senior administration official...

D.C. Circuit Pauses ‘Good Neighbor’ SIP Suit Pending High Court Ruling

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has paused litigation brought by states and industry against the agency’s disapproval of many states’ plans to curb interstate ozone pollution, pending a decision by the Supreme Court on whether to hear challenges to a regional court’s decision to transfer litigation to the D.C. court. In an April 24 order , the D.C. Circuit holds litigation in State of Utah, et al. v. EPA, et al. in abeyance...

Lung Association Finds Worsening Wildfire Impacts On Western Air Quality

The American Lung Association (ALA) in its annual “state of the air” report identifies a worsening trend of wildfire-driven fine particulate matter (PM2.5) across western states, increasing a disparity between poor air quality in the western part of the country and elsewhere, even as overall progress toward reducing ozone levels continues. ALA’s findings , released April 24, also confirm that breaches of EPA’s daily national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5 are increasing as major wildfire events increase, with...

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...

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