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.

Schumer Tees Up Senate Vote On Joe Goffman For Top EPA Air Slot

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has moved to tee up a procedural vote on the long-pending nomination of Joe Goffman to head EPA’s air office, paving the way for a possible final vote on the pick before the Senate departs for the Christmas holiday. Schumer Dec. 18 filed cloture on the Goffman pick, a process that opens the path to a procedural vote to end debate on Goffman’s nomination, and then to final vote on whether to confirm him...

As OMB Reviews EPA Truck Rule, Advocates Downplay Charging Needs

As the White House launches an inter-agency review of EPA’s draft final “phase 3” heavy truck greenhouse gas standards, clean transportation advocates are floating new analysis concluding that installing charging infrastructure on a small subset of the nation’s roads would support electrification of long-haul fleets in line with the rule’s requirements. The pitch by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) is the latest salvo in a battle over EPA’s phase 3 GHG rules, with some states and environmental groups...

Alaska senators seek to block EPA’s leaded aviation fuel finding

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R) and Dan Sullivan (R) are seeking to block an eventual phaseout of leaded aviation fuel, or “avgas,” offering a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to disapprove EPA’s October “endangerment finding” that triggered the obligation for the agency and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to regulate the fuel. Although the senators’ Dec. 7 resolution stands little chance of success in this Congress, given the need for backing by the House, Senate and White House, it underscores likely...

OMB Begins Review Of EPA Rule Curbing EtO From Commercial Sterilizers

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun pre-publication review of EPA’s controversial final air rule tightening limits on ethylene oxide (EtO) from commercial sterilizers, as the agency races to meet a March deadline amid pressure from industry to scrap the regulation and from environmentalists to tighten it further. EPA sent the rule for review Dec. 15, according to OMB’s website. The process typically takes up to 90 days, but can be faster or slower, depending on...

NOx-SOx-PM Standards Schedule Slips As EPA Rejects Further Review

EPA is rejecting its advisors’ call to revise the policy assessment (PA) underlying its plan to tighten “secondary” limits for nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM), but is nevertheless delaying the plan’s release until April, casting doubt on whether it can be finalized during President Joe Biden’s current term. EPA Administrator Michael Regan told Elizabeth Sheppard, chair of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), in a Dec. 7 letter that the agency could not...

Midwestern Lawmakers Press White House To Allow Year-Round E15 Fuel

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from corn-belt states is pressing the White House to ensure EPA swiftly approves petitions by Midwestern governors to allow sale of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) year-round in their states, after the agency told a federal court it now needs until March to finalize its approval, just ahead of the summer driving season. In their Dec. 14 letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, lawmakers say that under the Clean Air Act,...

EPA Readies Key NSR Changes, But Delays ‘Fugitive’ Emissions Rule

EPA is preparing key rules and guidance on new source review (NSR) air permitting, including a rule redefining when a “project” is subject to permit mandates, separate guidance on “minor source” NSR and defining the term “potential to emit” (PTE), but the agency is delaying a long-awaited rule eliminating a waiver for “fugitive” emissions. According to officials, EPA “tentatively” aims to issue a proposed rule in January revising Trump-era changes to the NSR emissions “netting” process that allowed permit applicants...

Supreme Court’s Silence Raises Doubts On ‘Good Neighbor’ Rule Stay

The Supreme Court’s delay in ruling on state and industry requests to stay EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) ozone rule is raising doubts about the petitioners’ prospects even as uncertainty over the rule’s fate continues to hamper implementation of the agency’s flagship policy on interstate air pollution. “If [the justices] thought these emergency requests had merit, why would they wait so long?” Dan Farber, an environmental law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, writes in a Dec. 8 blog...

Court Delays Briefing In Railroads’ Challenge To CARB Locomotive Rule

A federal court has agreed to the California air board’s request to delay the briefing schedule in the railroad industry’s challenge to the board’s rule requiring railways to reduce emissions from existing locomotives, rejecting industry arguments that the state is inappropriately biding its time to secure a federal preemption waiver for the rule from EPA. In a Dec. 7 minute order, Judge Daniel Calabretta of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California grants the California Air Resources...

Automaker Stellantis Charges CARB Illegally Adopted GHG Rules In 2020

The manufacturer of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles is asking California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) to find that the state’s air board illegally adopted agreements with five major automakers on vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards in 2020, resulting in overly stringent and unfair requirements for companies not included in the deal. The automaker FCA US LLC, a subsidiary of Stellantis, filed a Dec. 6 petition urging OAL to find that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) “has improperly adopted...

Water Sector Split On EPA’s Proposed PFAS Air Reporting Requirements

The water sector is divided on whether EPA should include PFAS in updated air emissions reporting requirements (AERR), with wastewater utilities urging the agency to wait until analytical methods are available and drinking water utilities backing EPA’s proposal and urging an even lower reporting threshold. The division reflects different industry practices and concerns as many wastewater facilities operate incinerators that would be subject to reporting requirements while drinking water utilities do not. EPA earlier this year announced proposed revisions to...

EPA Eyeing Paired Issuance Of PFAS Disposal Guidance, Air Test Method

EPA is aiming to release by the end of the year a statutorily mandated update to its interim disposal guidance for PFAS in concert with a test method for measuring certain PFAS in air emissions such as those left in incomplete combustion during thermal treatment -- a potential sign that technologies such as incineration may remain a possible disposal option in the guidance. Susan Burden, PFAS executive lead in EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), Dec. 7 said the...

EPA Asks Court To Dismiss Suits Over ‘Good Neighbor Plan’ Stay Rules

EPA is asking a federal appeals court to dismiss industry lawsuits over its two “interim final rules” administratively staying the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) ozone rule in some states, saying the suits are “unripe” and unlawful “collateral attacks” on the GNP, and that petitioners lack standing for their challenge to the interim regulations. In a Dec. 8 motion , EPA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to dismiss suits consolidated as National Mining Association,...

EPA vetoes Louisiana air plan over broad SSM terms

EPA has disapproved a Louisiana air quality plan over the states’ broad application of “work practice standards” to multiple source types as a replacement for automatic waivers during periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM), triggering a likely renewed legal fight over such exemptions. In a Dec. 7 decision , EPA disapproves the state implementation plan (SIP) revisions for the Baton Rouge ozone nonattainment area that the state put forward in response to EPA’s 2015 SIP Call rule. The agency...

Texas’ Suit Poses New Test For EPA Policy On Air ‘Contingency Measures’

Texas officials have filed a new appellate lawsuit that seeks to test EPA’s already-contested policy on “contingency measures” that states are required to take if they miss milestones toward attainment of federal air quality standards, litigation that may open new circuit splits after courts earlier issued conflicting rulings on the issue. In its suit filed Dec. 5 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, Texas seeks to scrap EPA’s recent disapproval of its state implementation plan (SIP)...

Latest COP28 Draft Agreement Expands Options Amid Uncertainty

DUBAI -- Negotiators at the international climate conference here are floating the most detailed draft agreement so far on key summit debates, though the measure largely expands the number of options ministers must agree on before the conference ends Dec. 12, instead of indicating that officials are nearing agreement on most topics. The latest draft “decision” document released Dec. 8 would formally conclude the inaugural “global stocktake” (GST) of collective progress toward achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, which...

Final EPA Methane Rule Sets Stage For States To Tighten Oil And Gas Curbs

EPA’s final oil and gas methane rule is poised to launch years of state work to lock in emissions requirements for numerous emissions sources, amid signs that even states with well-developed oil and gas emissions programs will have to make conforming changes while others decide whether to develop their own programs or await federal implementation. The new reality comes even as state officials are offering initial praise for EPA’s decision to lengthen the time for initial submission of state plans...

EPA Eyes Denver’s Voluntary Air Monitoring Program As National Model

EPA is considering whether a Denver-based community air monitoring program could become a national agency-backed prototype as part of the Biden administration’s effort to bolster environmental justice (EJ) considerations by expanding non-regulatory community air monitoring programs. The approach could provide an alternative to mandatory monitoring requirements that environmentalists are pushing the agency to adopt but which officials are resisting. Chet Wayland, director of EPA’s Air Quality Assessment Division in the Office of Air Quality Planning & Standards (OAQPS), told the...

EPA Plans Quick Release Of Implementation Plans For Tighter PM2.5 NAAQS

DURHAM, NC -- EPA is preparing to quickly issue measures for implementing tighter fine particle (PM2.5) limits, should officials as expected tighten the standards within weeks, possibly addressing difficult problems such as how to handle wildfire smoke that industry groups and others warn would undercut efforts to meet new limits. Speaking Dec. 6 at the annual Air Information Exchange hosted by the Air and Waste Management Association here, Peter Tsirigotis, director of EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards...

EPA Sees Mixed Outlook On Regulatory Deadlines Amid 2024 Pressure

EPA’s just-issued Fall Unified Agenda shows a mixed outlook for key rulemaking deadlines, with the agency retaining prior deadlines for many policies while delaying several major air rules -- and seeking to accelerate its schedule for completing long-delayed TSCA regulations. The new agenda , released Dec. 6, keeps some major rulemaking deadlines close to where they were in the Spring agenda, including those for various rules governing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and key climate policies, among others. But the...

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