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.

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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.

Climate Policy Skeptics Ramp Up Pitch To Scuttle Endangerment Finding

Conservative climate change policy skeptics are ramping up scientific and economic arguments for EPA to quickly and fully reverse its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and climate rules, highlighting claims that the agency is likely to weigh when it launches a process to re-examine the landmark 2009 risk finding. The early claims come as industry observers have been suggesting that EPA’s expected push to scrap the finding faces significant legal risk and could amount to a distraction from its deregulatory push...

GOP Former Officials Say Repealing GHG Finding Not ‘Most Fruitful Effort’

Republican former EPA officials say Administrator Lee Zeldin’s plan to revoke the agency’s landmark 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding faces major legal hurdles and thus might be a poor strategy to implement the Trump administration’s agenda of scaling back the agency’s climate rules. All of the other dozens of items on Zeldin’s deregulatory agenda “are no surprise, except the endangerment finding,” says one former EPA official during President Donald Trump’s first term. This source acknowledges it is the prerogative of...

Rehearing Requests Test EPA, State Powers On Interstate Emissions Issues

In a test of states’ and EPA’s Clean Air Act powers on interstate issues, Texas and industry groups are seeking en banc rehearing of an appeals court ruling that upheld the Biden EPA’s disapproval of the state’s plan for mitigating interstate ozone emissions, an EPA decision that paved the way for the now stayed Good Neighbor Plan (GNP). In a May 9 petition , Texas asks for rehearing en banc of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s...

Refiners Urge Court To Force ‘Mandatory’ RFS Cellulosic Volume Cut

A major refining sector group is asking a federal district court to force EPA into cutting its cellulosic biofuel blending requirement for 2023 under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), saying the move is required by the Clean Air Act, an argument that previews possible similar fights over required RFS volumes for 2026 and beyond. In a May 5 motion for summary judgment filed in American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) v. EPA , the refining industry group asks the U.S...

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House GOP Floats Draft Bills To Scrap EPA Auto Rules, IRA Climate Funds

House Republicans are floating draft legislation as part of their budget “reconciliation” effort that would repeal the Biden EPA’s multi-pollutant standards for light-duty vehicles, while also rescinding a variety of unobligated climate- and clean energy-related funds enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The proposals, included in draft legislation the House Energy & Commerce Committee is scheduled to mark up at a May 13 meeting, also come alongside a proposal to give developers expedited permitting under the Natural...

Free-Market Group Urges Justices To Scrap ‘Egregious’ Standing Precedent

A free-market legal advocacy group headed by former Attorney General Bill Barr (R) is urging the Supreme Court to scrap a landmark ruling from 2000 that established citizens’ standing rights to pursue enforcement actions against corporate polluters, as the court weighs a challenge by ExxonMobil to a key Clean Air Act enforcement suit. In a May 9 amicus brief , the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Legal Action and the pro fossil fuels Energy Freedom Fund...

Senate Democrats Blast EPA Plans To Shutter GHG Reporting Program

Senate environment committee Democrats are urging EPA not to end the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), arguing the 15-year-old data collection program was created pursuant to a congressional directive and that it bolsters U.S. competitiveness by enabling industry to prove it has lower emissions than overseas competitors. The Democrats “strongly urge you to halt your plans to shutter the GHGRP and related offices and to reinstate any functions already dissolved,” reads a May 7 letter to EPA Administrator Lee...

White House Eyes Ways To Blunt GHG Rulings As It Directs SCC Rollback

White House regulatory office acting chief Jeff Clark is directing EPA and other agencies to minimize or end their use of the social cost of carbon (SCC) metric to analyze federal actions’ climate effects, while also instructing officials to seek options to skirt any appeals court decisions calling for monetization of the carbon benefits of federal actions. The guidance, outlined in a May 5 memo from the Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), implements part of President Donald Trump’s...

EPA Proceeds With Suit Over Biden Bar On Air Permit ‘Affirmative Defense’

EPA and industry challengers have elected to continue litigating an industry suit opposing a Biden-era regulation that barred use of “affirmative defenses” in air permits to shield facilities from civil liability or penalties in the event of malfunctions after appellate judges appeared inclined to either toss the case or side with petitioners. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a brief May 7 order granted EPA’s earlier motion to remove the case from abeyance and...

Western States Ask EPA To Ease Air Law Compliance As Pollution Worsens

Western states are pressing EPA to ease compliance with the Clean Air Act as the region is torn between the need to meet growing energy demand while reducing rising pollution levels that they say are driven by increased heat, wildfire, natural sources and international emissions, outstripping the ability of local emissions cuts to reduce overall air pollution. In presentations to the Spring meeting of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA) held in Phoenix April 30 through May 2,...

EPA plans to approve Colorado ozone ‘contingency measures’

EPA is issuing a partial approval of a suite of Colorado measures for meeting federal ozone standards, including approval of the state’s finding that certain “contingency measures” (CMs) required under the Clean Air Act (CAA) are “infeasible,” reversing the agency’s prior disapproval of the states’ air quality plan. In a proposal published in the Federal Register May 8, EPA announces it will approve several elements of Colorado’s state implementation plan (SIP) for meeting the 2008 ozone national ambient air...

Withheld By Trump EPA, EDF Releases Inventory Showing Drop In GHGs

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is releasing the latest U.S. greenhouse gas emissions inventory after it obtained the report from EPA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), after the Trump administration previously blocked release of the data and in an unprecedented move declined to submit it to the United Nations. The environmental group is making available on its website documents including the full U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report , an executive summary and “extensive underlying information,” including drafts of...

GAO Urges Zeldin To Address Open Cybersecurity, Environmental Advice

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to take actions to ensure cybersecurity, improve air and water quality, and better assess and manage chemical risk, four of its nine priority recommendations for EPA in 2025 that warrant “timely and focused action.” GAO issued its priority open recommendations report for EPA on April 30, sending an initial letter to Zeldin calling for “your personal attention to four areas based on GAO’s past work and nine open priority...

EPA Close To Easing Incinerator Air Rule, Possibly Exempting Pyrolysis

EPA is nearing release of a long-delayed rule that would substantially relax air pollution limits for small waste incinerators, with provisions that are expected to exclude pyrolysis, a process used in plastics recycling, from the definition of incineration while also exempting many Alaskan units from regulation. The agency May 6 sent its final rule reviewing air emission standards for new and existing “other” solid waste incinerators (OSWI) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for prepublication review,...

Senate GOP Downplays Democrats’ Warning On California Waiver CRA Push

Senate Republicans appear to be downplaying strong Democratic procedural objections to overturning EPA’s preemption waivers for California’s vehicle emissions programs via the Congressional Review Act (CRA), though Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is hedging on precisely how the chamber will proceed on the issue. Thune’s positioning comes after Democrats warned in a May 1 letter that use of the CRA to scuttle the waivers could backfire on Republicans, essentially upending the Senate filibuster and opening the floodgates to targeting a...

Senate votes to rescind rubber tires air toxics rule

The Senate has approved a House-passed Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to scrap a Biden EPA rule tightening air toxics limits for rubber tire manufacturing, clearing the measure for signature by President Donald Trump after two Democratic senators joined with all Republicans to support the measure. Senators on May 6 voted 55-45 to pass the measure, H.J. Res. 61, which disapproves the Biden EPA’s tightened national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) for the sector. Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA)...

Air Office Reorganization Seeks To End Climate Programs, Overhaul OAQPS

EPA is planning a broad overhaul of the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) by eliminating climate offices and reorganizing the Office of Air Quality, Planning and Standards (OAQPS), which sets stationary source standards for criteria pollutants and air toxics, according to reorganization plans obtained by Inside EPA . OAQPS and the Office of Atmospheric Protection (OAP) will be “reorganized and their functions realigned into 2 new offices,” according to text of a presentation given to OAR employees in a...

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