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.

Truckers, Towing Firms Make Final Pitch For Relief Under CARB’s ZEV Rules

Trucking industry groups and towing companies are making 11th-hour pitches to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to provide further compliance relief under the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) zero-emission sales mandate rule, while also challenging officials’ claims about why there is a shortage of new diesel trucks on the market. “We dispute the conclusion in the California Truck Availability Analysis that frames the on-going truck market disruption as a communication problem between manufacturers, dealers and fleet customers,” states a Dec...

Split 5th Circuit Backs Landmark Air Penalty Amid Confusion On Standing

A starkly divided 5th Circuit has upheld a landmark civil penalty imposed on oil giant ExxonMobil for Clean Air Act (CAA) violations, in a profoundly divided opinion that otherwise fails to resolve key questions over citizens’ standing to sue, amid a dispute over whether the court should even have heard the long-running case again. Given the judges’ often-rancorous divisions, the case appears to be a good candidate for appeal to the Supreme Court on the question of when citizens have...

As EPA Preps Waiver, Industry Attacks ‘Unachievable’ California ZEV Rules

Auto manufacturers are stepping up their attacks on California’s latest round of zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate rules that have been adopted by 11 other “section 177” states, signaling that industry will be pressing courts and the incoming Trump administration to defeat EPA’s imminent expected approval of a preemption waiver for the rules. “The California/177 states are telling automakers what kind of vehicles to sell under a program that is an unaccountable, unachievable regulatory wormhole,” states a Dec. 11 memo released...

EPA Modestly Tightens Secondary NAAQS, But Requires No Emissions Cuts

EPA’s just-issued rule modifying “secondary” national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) slightly tightens a limit for sulfur oxides (SOx) but requires no new emissions cuts, leaving other limits unchanged and providing states and industry with “streamlined” compliance options, although the incoming Trump EPA may reverse the rule anyway. In its rule signed Dec. 10, but not yet published in the Federal Register , EPA revises the SOx limit using different metrics than the current limit set in 1971. Secondary NAAQS...

Final Rule

Fact Sheet

Alternative Compliance Method


Environmentalists seek to back EPA in Denka compliance deadline suit

Local environmentalists are seeking to intervene on EPA’s behalf in an appellate suit over Louisiana’s decision to extend by nearly two years Denka Performance Elastomers’s (DPE) deadline for complying with the agency’s strict new chloroprene emissions limits, which the agency had required the company to comply with in 90 days. Concerned Citizens of St. John and Rise St. James filed a Dec. 6 motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to intervene, a move that if...

EPA Poised To Issue Plan Curbing Waste Incinerator Emissions In 10 States

EPA is slated to publish a federal plan enforcing 2019 emission guidelines (EGs) for commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI) in 10 states and U.S. territories, triggering a requirement for non-compliant incinerators to shut down within 30 days. In a notice scheduled for publication in Federal Register Dec. 11, EPA finalizes its plan for compliance with the EGs. “The implementation of the emission guidelines will result in emissions reductions of the regulated pollutants including cadmium, hydrogen chloride, lead,...

EPA Faces Possible Suit Over Aftermarket Enforcement In Older Vehicles

A company that tunes diesel engines to bolster their efficiency is threatening to sue EPA, charging that a consent decree the company signed in 2023 exceeds Clean Air Act limits on the agency’s ability to regulate a vehicle’s “full useful life,” which is generally 10 years, not the broader definition officials adopted in 2020 guidance. Detroit-based Green Diesel Engineering (GDE) filed a Nov. 14 notice of intent (NOI) to sue that cites a May 31, 2023, settlement the company entered...

Steel sector seeks rehearing of air rule stay denial

The steel industry is seeking en banc rehearing of an appeals court decision denying its request to stay EPA’s tougher air toxics rule for integrated steel manufacturing, claiming that recent high court precedent ending deference to agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutory terms requires rehearing of the divided panel’s decision. In a Dec. 6 filing , steelmakers Cleveland Cliffs Inc. and U.S. Steel Corp. asks the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to rehear the court’s Oct...

EPA Defends Principle Of ‘Modular’ Interstate Air Rules In GNP Remand

EPA’s defense of the “modular” structure of its stayed Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate air rule in response to Supreme Court criticism aims to protect a method of regulation that faces doubtful immediate prospects under the incoming Trump administration, but might be revived by a future administration should it survive judicial review. In its Dec. 3 notice , which is slated for publication in the Federal Register Dec. 10, the agency attempts to answer accusations from the high court...

OMB Reviewing EPA Plan To Cut Air Toxics From Small Chemical Plants

EPA has sent its plan to cut air toxics from hundreds of smaller “area source” chemical manufacturing plants for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pre-publication review, in a rulemaking that may aim to limit emissions of the carcinogenic solvent ethylene oxide (EtO) but may never be finalized by the Trump administration. OMB received the proposal from EPA Dec. 5, according to OMB’s website, starting a review process that typically takes up to 90 days. EPA is under...

Court Scraps EPA Denial Of Kentucky Interstate Air Plan, Boosting GNP Foes

A federal appeals court has vacated EPA’s disapproval of Kentucky’s state implementation plan (SIP) for interstate ozone that the agency used to bring the state into its Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) -- the first merits ruling in the many parallel suits over the plan, and one that will boost its critics -- likely including the incoming Trump administration. In its Dec. 6 decision , a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Commonwealth...

D.C. Circuit Judges Grapple With CCS Basis For Power Plant GHG Rules

A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel is grappling with numerous key issues in the Biden EPA’s high-profile power plant greenhouse gas standards, with oral arguments offering hints about where they see vulnerabilities in a measure that has been a chief target for rollback by the incoming Trump administration. The judges’ comments during Dec. 6 oral argument in the case, West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al. , could have implications for future power plant GHG rulemakings, even as the panel...

Industry Groups Target EPA Rules For ‘Regulatory Reset’ Under Trump

A broad swath of industry groups led by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has issued a deregulatory roadmap targeting high-profile EPA rules that they want the incoming Trump administration to reverse or scale back, including the agency’s tougher fine particle standard and an array of air, water and other rules. The roadmap is laid out in a Dec. 5 letter to President-elect Donald Trump signed by more than 100 organizations. It charges that “regulations are strangling our economy” with...

EPA poised to issue ‘secondary’ NAAQS

EPA is poised to issue final “secondary” national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx) and particulate matter (PM), after the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) completed review of the rule, though its prospects appear dim under the GOP-controlled Congress and Trump administration. Under a consent decree with environmentalists, EPA has until Dec. 10 to issue the rule, which would revise the “welfare-based” standards that are designed to protect the environment, unlike primary limits...

EPA Plans Cut In RFS Cellulosic Volume Mandate For 2024, Citing Shortfall

EPA is proposing to cut its required blending volume for cellulosic biofuel under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) for 2024, citing a shortfall in production and credits carried over from 2023, as refiners are suing the agency to obtain a similar cut for the 2023 volumes in order to reduce their compliance costs. The agency’s proposal , which was released Dec. 5 but has not yet been published in the Federal Register , appears likely to provide an early test...

‘Reviled’ EPA Seen As Prime Target For Musk’s DOGE Cost-Cutting Initiative

Observers say EPA is likely one of the highest priorities for President-elect Donald Trump’s planned effort to cut costs and staffing across the executive branch through an advisory body known as the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy -- though its ability to actually enact those cuts still faces significant uncertainty. EPA is “one of the most politically reviled agencies on the Right” and thus likely to be among DOGE’s first targets, James Goodwin,...

Arguments In Power Plant GHG Case Could Inform Future Rules, Experts Say

Legal experts say they will be closely watching D.C. Circuit judges’ comments during Dec. 6 oral argument about key issues concerning EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards, as they could inform the incoming Trump administration’s attempt to scale back the rule or craft future power plant GHG policies. Jeff Holmstead, an industry attorney with the Bracewell law firm, calls it “highly unlikely” that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ever issues a decision in the...

Interstate Ozone Program Faces Trump Reversal Despite GNP Justification

EPA’s interstate ozone program will revert to older, less-ambitious requirements under the incoming Trump administration and may not satisfy Clean Air Act mandates to ensure compliance with current ozone standards, sources say, regardless of the agency’s recent justification of the stayed Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) rule to the Supreme Court. “I think the interstate good neighbor transport rules for ozone, to the extent they had any life left after the Supreme Court’s emergency stay, are officially dead,” says one Northeastern...

Groups seek to block EPA extension of California PM attainment deadline

Several environmental and equity groups are asking the 9th Circuit to quickly block EPA’s approval of a one-year deadline extension for California’s San Joaquin Valley area to attain a 1997 annual fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standard, the latest battle in an ongoing legal war over various Golden State plans to meet federal emission limits. “The Court should grant this Motion because EPA’s regulations prohibit the extension and the San Joaquin Valley has repeatedly failed to attain the National Ambient Air...

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