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.

Dismissal Of EPA Science Advisors Raises Fears For NAAQS Reviews

EPA’s dismissal of science advisors guiding its efforts to set new air quality standards is raising fears among public health advocates that officials will revert to contested practices from the first Trump administration and undermine reviews, but it is also inviting comparisons with the Biden EPA’s dismissal of advisors that provoked conservative criticism. One public health advocate says health groups are closely tracking the agency to see if it takes steps similar to those seen under the first Trump administration...

Industry Lawyer Doubts Fresh Bid For Trump Stay Of Utility GHG Limits

An industry attorney is casting doubt on new calls for the Trump EPA to issue an administrative stay of the Biden EPA’s greenhouse gas power plant standards while it pursues a longer rulemaking to undo them, warning that courts rejected a similar move during the first Trump administration to stay methane rules. The suggestion follows a letter from several utilities earlier this month urging the Trump administration to issue either an administrative stay of the rules, or a conduct a...

D.C. Circuit Restarts Refinery Suit Over ‘Three Strikes’ Air Act Exemption

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has restarted litigation in a years-old dispute over the so-called “three strikes” air emissions exemption, allowing the issue to be adjudicated in the context of a suit over EPA refinery air rules. In a Jan. 30 per curiam order , Judges Patricia Millett, Neomi Rao and Robert Wilkins grant EPA’s Nov. 15 motion to proceed with the refinery sector litigation and address the exemption that way, while rejecting...

Rubber Tire Manufacturers Sue EPA Over Tougher Air Toxics Standards

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association (USTMA) is suing EPA over its Biden-era rule tightening air toxics standards for the sector, in another test of EPA’s policy requiring the agency to add limits for hazardous pollutants initially unregulated in an air toxics rule, although the Trump administration might drop its defense of the rule and reconsider it. In its Jan. 28 suit filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, USTMA does not give reasons for...

Missouri sues EPA over St Louis ozone nonattainment

Missouri is suing EPA over its decision finding that the St. Louis area failed to attain federal ozone standards by the applicable Clean Air Act deadline and reclassifying the Missouri portion of the area from “moderate” to “serious” nonattainment, a change that will require tougher air pollution control measures from the state. The state challenges EPA’s reclassification rule in a suit filed Jan. 24 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. EPA reclassified the area in a...

Utilities Provide Roadmap For Trump EPA Rollback Of Coal Ash, GHG Rules

A coalition of 10 power utilities is urging the Trump EPA to immediately review and rescind Biden-era regulations governing the sector’s air, water and waste pollution, arguing the rules are unlawful, overly expansive, and impose significant burdens that will increase electricity rates and threaten reliability. The utilities outline their arguments in a Jan. 15 letter to Lee Zeldin, who was confirmed by the Senate on Jan. 29 as President Donald Trump’s EPA administrator. They flag issues that require “swift and...

Biofuel Producers Look To Trump To Boost E15, RFS And Aviation Fuel

Biofuel producers are urging the Trump administration to support the sector’s key priorities including year-round sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15), faster issuance of renewable fuel standard (RFS) blending targets and improved prospects for ethanol to qualify as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), according to a leading industry official. In an interview with Inside EPA , Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), cited early moves by President Donald Trump that appear to balance his long-standing...

Seeking ‘Reset,’ Acting EPA Chief Dismisses All SAB, CASAC Panelists

Update Appended Seeking a “reset,” EPA Acting Administrator James Payne has dismissed all members of the agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), echoing similar sweeping actions the agency took at the start of both the first Trump and Biden administrations. In a Jan. 28 email obtained by Inside EPA , Payne told Tom Brennan, director of the EPA SAB Staff Office, of the dismissals in order to reset the two boards. “A decision...

Litigants Urge High Court To Deny EPA Pause In Air Act Venue Cases

Litigants on different sides in pending high court litigation over the venue for Clean Air Act cases are urging the Supreme Court to deny EPA motions to pause the suits, arguing the court should resolve disputes regardless of lower courts’ merits rulings or likely shifts in EPA policy under the Trump administration. In a series of recent filings, Republican states, as well as biofuels and refining groups, urge the justices to reject EPA’s requests to pause the suits pending a...

EPA Pauses Air Modeling Rule Amid Uncertainty Over Secondary NAAQS

EPA is extending the effective date of its November “guideline” that provides states with new methods for modeling air quality, moving the date from Jan. 28 to March 21 in response to President Donald Trump’s regulatory “freeze order” amid doubts over the status of EPA’s revised “secondary” air standards rule that may also be subject to a similar pause. In a notice scheduled for publication in the Jan. 28 Federal Register , EPA announces the extension in the effective date...

Hill GOP Weighs Targeting EPA Vehicle Standards Via Reconciliation Bill

Capitol Hill Republicans are considering using budget reconciliation legislation to target EPA’s vehicle emissions standards and Transportation Department (DOT) fuel economy rules, a move that could allow the Trump administration to avoid a series of regulatory and judicial hurdles to scaling back the standards. But while some Republicans are asserting the rules could be rescinded in such a bill because doing so would produce budget savings from reduced uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) eligible for federal EV tax credits, other...

EPA Seeks To Pause High Court California Waiver, Air Act Venue Suits

The Trump EPA is asking the Supreme Court to pause cases over Biden-era preemption waivers for California vehicle rules and Clean Air Act venue provisions implicated by agency denials of renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance waivers, with the agency stating it will review and potentially reverse both policies. The Jan. 24 requests are among the first in a likely wave of similar asks to pause litigation in various courts as the Trump administration weighs major policy shifts. In a Jan...

Environmentalists sue EPA to force mine air permit objection

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and allied community activists are suing EPA to force the agency to respond to their petition seeking an objection to the air permit of the Hermosa metals mine in Arizona, claiming major errors in the permit that will allow harmful emissions, though the chances of a Trump EPA objection appear remote. In their suit filed Jan. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, CBD and Patagonia Area Resource Alliance say...

Trump Order Freezes EPA Ozone Reclassification Rule, Pending Review

President Donald Trump’s order freezing pending regulations has stalled the Biden EPA’s rule setting deadlines for states to submit various elements of air quality plans required when areas are reclassified to worsened “nonattainment” with federal ozone standards, opening the door to the rule being reversed as litigation on the issue continues. The reclassification rule published in the Jan. 17 Federal Register sets default deadlines in line with the proposed version that GOP states and industry criticized. It also retains...

Utah, Oil Group Sue EPA Over Uinta Basin’s Worsened Ozone NAAQS Status

Utah and a local oil sector group are suing EPA over its denial of an additional compliance extension for the oil and gas-producing Uinta Basin area to meet federal ozone standards, after the agency reversed course from its prior proposal to approve the extension, forcing the area into more serious “nonattainment” that will require new controls. In a Jan. 22 lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, Utah challenges EPA’s Dec. 16 decision denying a...

Industry Says Trump’s EJ Order Revocation Should Reinstate LNG Approval

A liquefied natural gas (LNG) developer in a new letter to the D.C. Circuit is arguing that President Donald Trump’s revocation of a landmark environmental justice (EJ) executive order (EO) issued three decades ago scraps the basis of a three-judge panel’s decision vacating federal approval of its Texas LNG export project. The developer, Rio Grande LNG, makes the argument in a Jan. 23 letter to the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as part of its...

Biofuels Groups Criticize RFS Volume Cut Plan Amid Trump Uncertainty

Biofuels groups are criticizing the Biden EPA’s proposal to cut the already-final 2024 target for refiners to blend cellulosic biofuels under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), as the Trump administration has offered some early support for the sector even as it also more broadly touts fossil fuels and is expected to support refiners on some RFS issues. In recent comments on the Biden EPA’s Dec. 12 planned cut in the cellulosic blending target, biofuels groups warn that the retroactive decrease...

EPW Clears Zeldin Nomination, With Kelly Joining Committee Republicans

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) has cleared the nomination of Lee Zeldin to be the Trump EPA’s administrator, with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) joining Republicans after he had earlier pressed the nominee to work on ozone pollution issues in his state. During a Jan. 23 business meeting, EPW members voted 11-8 to confirm Zeldin, a former Republican House member from a Long Island, NY, district. The vote means his nomination is now ready for Senate floor consideration...

Trump OMB Continues Review Of EPA Water Policies Amid Broader Freeze

Editor’s Note: After this story was published, EPA withdrew from OMB review the pending draft final guidance governing National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for discharges from a point source through groundwater as well as the final rule that would advance development of market-based approaches, including water quality trading, under the NPDES program. The Trump White House is continuing to review three Biden EPA clean water permitting policies even as the agency withdrew a series of...

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