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.

CARB Weighs Tough Post-MY25 Auto GHG Limits Based On EPA Plan

California air regulators are considering tough new greenhouse gas standards for model year 2026-35 passenger vehicles via amendments to the state’s existing Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) regulation, which does not address GHGs, based in part on EPA’s pending multi-pollutant standards that would cover many of the same model years. In addition, California Air Resources Board (CARB) staff are also considering updates to the ACC II’s existing zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) purchase mandate provisions. The state’s August 2022 rule established...

EPA Floats New Air Modeling Guidance, With Focus On Cumulative Impacts

EPA is proposing an update to its technical guidelines on modeling air pollution, with a new emphasis on estimating the cumulative impact of multiple pollution sources on local populations, in an action that has implications for how air regulators determine attainment of potentially tougher federal air quality limits, and how they write air permits. In an Oct. 23 proposed rule , EPA announces the intended update to its Guideline on Air Quality Models, including changes to its American Meteorological Society...

EPA Faces Widening Litigation Over Regional Haze Program Plan Delays

Environmentalists are expanding their litigation seeking to force EPA action to ensure that states have the necessary plans in place to reduce regional haze, as the vast majority of state plans for the second phase of the program are now either overdue or awaiting EPA action. In a notice of intent to sue (NOI) that EPA posted to its website Oct. 23, Sierra Club, National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and Earthjustice on Aug. 23 threatened to sue the agency over...

EPA Agrees To Deadline For Sweeping Chemical Plants Air Toxics Review

EPA has agreed with environmentalists on a proposed timetable to review its air toxics regulations for hundreds of smaller “area source” chemical manufacturing facilities, in a sweeping rulemaking that could tighten emissions limits in the pesticides, plastics, pharmaceutical, synthetic rubber and other chemical sectors. In its proposed consent decree deal announced in the Oct. 20 Federal Register , EPA commits to review its national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP) for the Chemical Manufacturing Area Sources (CMAS) source category...


Truckers, Dealers Press CARB To Relax NOx Rules, Citing Supply Shortage

Trucking companies, dealers and others are urging California officials to further relax their low-nitrogen oxide (NOx) rules for model year 2024-26 heavy-duty diesel engines, charging that proposed amendments that seek to ease compliance with the requirements will not do enough to overcome significant supply shortages of compliant new trucks. “We’re here today because this regulation is disrupting the supply of new trucks into the California market. Member companies have reported sales allocation cuts as deep as 60 to 90 percent...

Attorneys Flag ‘Far-Reaching Effects’ Of EPA’s Climate Enforcement Push

Industry attorneys are warning about the potential “far-reaching effects” of the Biden EPA’s stepped-up focus on climate change as part of enforcement actions, arguing that officials appear poised to include both mitigation- and adaptation-focused elements in enforcement actions across environmental media. A heightened priority on climate at various agencies, as well as EPA’s new climate enforcement strategy, “are likely to have immediate and far-reaching effects on the regulated community,” warns Barnes & Thornburg attorney Bruce White in an Oct. 10...

Health Advocates, Industry Clash Over PM NAAQS In Last-Ditch Lobbying

Public health advocates and industry groups are staking out competing stances as they lobby the Biden administration over EPA’s imminent rule that is expected to strengthen fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standards, with advocates pushing to toughen limits more than proposed, while industry groups warn the move would be economically harmful. Supporters and opponents of tougher national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for PM2.5 are now meeting with EPA and White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials to make...

Judge Sets March ’24 Trial Date In EPA’s Landmark Denka Enforcement Suit

EPA’s closely watched enforcement action over releases at a Louisiana chemical facility -- the first to test the agency’s rarely used Clean Air Act authority to address an “imminent and substantial endangerment” -- is slated to go to trial early next year. Judge Carl Barbier of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana issued an Oct. 23 order setting a March 11, 2024 date for a 10-day bench trial in the suit USA v. Denka Performance Elastomer...

Environmentalists Fight Effort To Preserve Air Permit ‘Affirmative Defense’

Environmentalists are seeking to intervene in industry litigation aimed at scrapping EPA’s July rule barring use of “affirmative defense” waivers in air permits, even as industry groups step up their attacks on the policy, charging it violates key constitutional prohibitions on uncompensated takings and unlawful search and seizure. In an Oct. 19 motion , groups including Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for...

Legal Experts See Possible ‘Early’ High Court Action On Vehicle Rules

Prominent legal experts are suggesting ongoing court battles over EPA’s vehicle emissions policies could see “early” Supreme Court review based on the justices’ concerns about future rules, even if a key appeals court were to uphold existing vehicle standards or dismiss relevant challenges on procedural grounds. The suggestion builds on indications that state and fuels sector litigants challenging EPA and California vehicle greenhouse gas standards are tailoring their arguments in the appellate case to entice Supreme Court intervention, by asserting...

EPA Asks Ohio To Address EJ Concerns In Permit For Tire-To-Fuel Plant

EPA is asking Ohio environmental officials to add conditions to better address environmental justice (EJ) issues in a draft permit for a Youngstown facility that proposes to convert tire chips into energy, warning that the agency “has determined that the draft permitting action raises potential [EJ] concerns” and potential civil rights problems as well. The request, spelled out in a letter sent to state officials last month, is the latest indication that the agency is continuing to press states to...

States Grapple With Wildfire Smoke As EPA Faulted Over ‘Events’ Waiver

State air regulators are wrestling with how to use EPA’s “exceptional events” waiver policy to excuse high pollution readings driven by increasingly prevalent wildfires, amid renewed criticism of the waiver rule from environmentalists and others who are concerned the policy provides a “loophole” for unhealthy air. One state source says that the increasingly pressing issue is being addressed by state groups, such as the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, representing state and local regulators across the country, which is...

EPA sends waste combustors air plan for OMB review

EPA is moving closer to proposing what is likely to be tougher emissions standards for large municipal waste combustors (MWCs), sending its plan for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review amid competing pressures from environmentalists to swiftly tighten the limits, and from industry to move more slowly. The agency sent its proposal to OMB Oct. 16, according to OMB’s website. Under a proposed consent decree with environmentalists in East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice v. EPA ,...

Metal Finishers Say CARB Deleting Key Exemption In Chrome-6 Phaseout

A metal finishing industry group is charging that California air board officials are deleting a key exemption in the board’s recently adopted rules to phase out uses of hexavalent chromium (chrome-6) at metal-plating operations, as part of 11th-hour modifications before the rules are finalized by the state’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL). “We have technology that can have zero emissions in enclosed plating tanks. The issue we see is there was an exemption in the rule and now it is...

EPA Urged To Delay EtO Air Rules Until NASEM Reviews Texas’ Risk Value

Republican lawmakers and industry representatives are stepping up their criticism of EPA’s conservative assessment of ethylene oxide’s (EtO) health risks -- the basis for several major air rules -- and suggesting the agency should delay those policies until federal science advisors complete their review of a competing EtO assessment by Texas regulators. But delaying the rules may be difficult as some are already final -- though they also face industry court challenges -- while other pending rules are subject to...

EPA Grants CARB Waiver For Vessel At-Berth Rules To Cut Port Pollution

EPA is granting California a waiver from Clean Air Act preemption to allow the state air board to implement and enforce tougher 2020 rules to cut emissions from at-berth ocean-going vessels (OGVs), which supporters believe will significantly cut port pollution by requiring OGVs to use shore power rather than their dirtier auxiliary engines. “This means people living downwind of ports will get some relief from the pollution coming from ships that are docked,” says one environmentalist of the EPA action...

EPA Finds Leaded Aviation Fuel Endangers Health But Omits Rule Timetable

EPA’s just-issued finding that lead in aviation fuel used by piston-engine aircraft endangers public health and welfare triggers an obligation to regulate aircraft emissions, but the agency is declining to set a timetable for new rules despite pressure from Democrats and environmentalists to move swiftly. The finding , which EPA released Oct. 18, confirms EPA’s view that lead emissions from aircraft using leaded fuel “cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and...


EPA objects to Pittsburgh coke plant permit targeted by environmentalists

EPA is formally objecting to local regulators' air permit for a Pittsburgh-area coke plant, saying it fails to ensure sufficient monitoring of emissions, a month after environmentalists sued the agency over its failure to respond to their petition seeking such an objection -- and after it separately proposed fenceline air toxics monitoring mandates for the sector. EPA in a notice scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Oct. 18 partially grants environmentalists’ petition for an agency objection to the...

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