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.

EPA Proposes Delaying Year-Round E15 Approval In Eight States To 2024

EPA is proposing to grant requests from eight states to revise federal fuel regulations to allow sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) year-round, but plans to delay the effective date until 2024 as sought by the oil sector, meaning that E15 fuel will not be available this summer absent emergency action by the agency. A proposal just signed by EPA Administrator Michael Regan but not yet published in the Federal Register would approve the removal of a 1...

EPA Files Novel Emergency Suit To Push Denka To Cut Chloroprene Releases

Citing rarely used emergency authority under the Clean Air Act, EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are asking a federal court to force Denka Performance Elastomer LLC, to reduce chloroprene emissions from its neoprene manufacturing facility in Louisiana, a move that escalates a long-running dispute over the risks posed by chemical. The Feb. 28 complaint , United States v. Denka Performance Elastomer LLC and Dupont Specialty Products USA LLC , filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District...

Environmentalists threaten to sue EPA over NM gas permit

WildEarth Guardians, a New Mexico-based environmental group, is threatening to sue EPA over the agency’s failure to make a final decision approving or denying the state’s air permits for two large gas processing facilities in the Permian Basin oil and gas-producing region, after regulators missed a deadline to remedy the permits that EPA already found inadequate. “New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Environment Department is turning its back on its duty to protect people and communities from the oil and...

Goffman Plans CSAPR Flexibility For Grid Reliability But Fails To Satisfy GOP

EPA is planning to include “flexibility” measures in its forthcoming expansion of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) in order to allay grid operators’ fears that the proposal could lead to reliability problems, EPA’s air chief nominee Joe Goffman told the Senate environment committee during his confirmation hearing. But Goffman’s March 1 pledge on the upcoming emissions trading rule failed to allay Republican concerns over the reliability impacts of CSAPR and other EPA rules, as well as agency estimates of...

Citing Energy Goals, House GOP Advances Bills Targeting EPA Authority

House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans are advancing seven bills targeting a wide range of EPA authorities to regulate “critical energy resources” and refiners, as well as key climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), even though contentious debate on the measures underscores formidable obstacles to their enactment. The bills’ approvals at a Feb. 28 environment subcommittee markup came just hours after lawmakers during a separate energy subcommittee markup similarly backed nine bills on issues including natural gas pipelines...

EPA Launches Climate Grants For States, Cities With $250 Million For Plans

EPA is opening applications for $250 million that states, cities and tribes can use to develop climate change mitigation plans under the first phase of its $5 billion program created by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), starting a possible scramble for money as grant applicants seek to meet fast-approaching deadlines. “We know that tackling the climate crisis demands a sense of urgency to protect people and the planet,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan announcing the move March 1 ...

Sierra Club sues EPA to force SO2 plan for Texas

Sierra Club is suing EPA to force the agency to issue a federal plan to directly regulate sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from the area surrounding a major Texas coal-fired power plant, after the state failed to provide the necessary compliance plan itself. In a lawsuit filed Jan. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Sierra Club asks the court to set a binding deadline for EPA to issue a federal implementation plan (FIP) to limit...

CARB Says EPA Could Impose Tighter Auto PM Limit Than State Rules

California air officials and others say that several factors -- including differing geographic considerations and regulatory baselines -- could spur EPA to weigh requirements stricter than the state’s current particulate matter (PM) standards in its upcoming multi-pollutant vehicle standards, in line with calls from health advocates. EPA’s precise plans on the issue are unclear amid a mounting focus on vehicle electrification as a key strategy to cut greenhouse gases and criteria pollution, though EPA has also pledged to continue a...

EPA Walks Back Lead Battery Plants’ Tougher Air Limits After Industry Push

EPA’s final air rule limiting lead emissions from lead-acid battery manufacturing plants substantially tightens current limits, but not as much as proposed, after industry complaints convinced officials to walk back one tougher pollution limit based on updated information, and spurred EPA to narrow the application of measures to curb “fugitive” emissions. In its rule published Feb. 23 in the Federal Register , EPA tightens new source performance standards (NSPS) for the sector, and also makes conforming changes setting the...

ACC Sues EPA Over Air Rule Ending Waiver For Superfund, RCRA Sites

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is suing EPA over its Dec. 14 rule ending an exemption from air toxics limits for waste remediation facilities already regulated under Superfund or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) law, a change opposed by major industry groups that see only costs, but no benefits, from the air regulation. ACC filed suit Feb. 21 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit over the rule that ends the exemption for cleanup...

EPA, Environmentalists Poised For Deal To Review Incinerator Air Rules

EPA and environmental groups have agreed on a deal “in principle” that would set deadlines for the agency to review and possibly tighten air rules governing municipal waste combustors (MWCs), satisfying a key demand of environmentalists who are urging action to curb the facilities’ harmful air emissions. In a Feb. 23 joint motion to again extend filing deadlines in litigation over the issue, EPA and environmental groups inform the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that...

EPA touts drop in power plant emissions

EPA is touting a drop in power plant emissions from 2021 to 2022, according to its latest data, continuing a long-term trend and highlighting a sharp drop in ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) from states participating in EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program. EPA data released Feb. 24 shows declines in the lower 48 states in 2022 relative to 2021 for several different pollutants, including a 10 percent decline in sulfur dioxide (SO2), a 4 percent decrease in...

Health Groups Seek Criteria Pollution Focus In Upcoming EPA Auto Rule

Environmental and public health groups are ramping up calls for EPA to assume significant electrification in its upcoming passenger vehicle multi-pollutant standards while still requiring air emissions cuts from conventional vehicles, including one group’s request for fine particle standards that would require technology already in European and Chinese vehicles. The advocacy, detailed in a flurry of recent meetings with White House and EPA officials on the draft proposal, comes amid expectations that the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) will...

Chemical Industry Sues EPA Over EtO Risk Value In ‘MON’ Air Toxics Rule

Chemical manufacturer Huntsman Petrochemical LLC and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) are suing EPA over its December rule affirming a controversial 2016 risk assessment for the industrial solvent ethylene oxide (EtO) as the basis of its regulation limiting air toxics from the Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing (MON) sector. In a suit filed Feb. 21 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Huntsman challenges the Biden EPA rule that reconsidered a 2020 Trump-era regulation . ACC,...

Environmentalists press EPA to regulate Permian Basin ozone

Environmentalists are ramping up pressure on EPA to designate large areas of the oil and gas-producing Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico in “nonattainment” with federal ozone standards, after the agency appeared to back away from a proposal to do so based on high ozone levels resulting from drilling operations in the region. In a Feb. 14 letter to EPA Region 6 Administrator Earthea Nance, Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and WildEarth Guardians urge the agency to proceed with...

EPA Moves To Bar Startup, Shutdown Air Exemptions In Multiple States

EPA is proposing to restore its ban on state exemptions from air regulations for periods of facility startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM) in Texas, Iowa and North Carolina, but it is also planning to strip newly identified exemptions from five other states’ air quality plans, as the agency moves to implement long-delayed Obama-era policy. In a proposal slated for publication in the Federal Register Feb. 24, EPA as expected says it will reverse the Trump administration’s decision to exclude...

For Now, OAR Relies On Narrow PFAS Definition To Review VOC Waivers

EPA’s air office is, for now, expressing support for a narrow definition of PFAS when it considers exempting chemicals from Clean Air Act rules governing volatile organic compounds (VOCs), saying it does not need a broader, unique definition because it scrutinizes a range of the substances’ risks before delisting them. While the narrow definition of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), crafted by EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), is opposed by environmentalists because it precludes some substances from...

Industry Flags Implementation Critiques For EPA’s HFC End-Use Proposal

Major industry groups are raising a series of implementation concerns about EPA’s proposed restrictions on specific end-uses for hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), a rule intended to complement the agency’s overall phasedown of the potent greenhouse gas often used as refrigerants and in other sectors. Among the asks, industry is pushing EPA to eliminate or significantly extend a one-year “sell-through” period to sell equipment containing non-compliant HFCs. Other concerns include that EPA may be unintentionally requiring products be replaced prematurely rather than repaired...

Former Advisers Charge EPA’s PM Plan Relies On ‘Contrived’ CASAC Panel

Two former EPA science advisers are renewing their legal attack on the agency’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), making new allegations in appellate court that the Biden administration unlawfully dismissed the Trump-era panel and replaced it with compliant scientists who support agency efforts to tighten particulate matter (PM) limits. “EPA proposed a new particulate-matter standard that will impose billions of dollars in costs on regulated industries (and ultimately consumers) on the basis of a unanimous Committee recommendation that the...

Senate Democrats try again to advance EPA air nominee

Senate Democrats are making another push to advance the Biden administration’s nomination of Joe Goffman to lead EPA’s air office after failing to advance the selection in the last Congress. Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), chairman of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, announced Feb. 22 that the panel will hold a March 1 hearing on the nomination, setting the stage for a partisan clash over Goffman’s record on climate, vehicle and energy sector rules. Goffman failed to win confirmation...

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