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 Rule Seeks To Boost Reclaimed HFCs, But Narrows Some Mandates

EPA’s final rule governing the recycling and reclamation of climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) will require the use of reclaimed HFCs when servicing many types of equipment, even as the agency accepted industry calls to scrap proposed mandates to charge new appliances with reclaimed products and track HFC transports. Broadly, EPA’s Sept. 23 rule seeks to boost reclamation and recycling efforts for HFCs to complement the agency’s broader program sharply phasing down production of virgin HFCs, often used in refrigeration and air-conditioning...

GM Seeks En Banc Review Of Order Allowing Consumers’ Cheating Suit

General Motors (GM) is asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to reverse a three-judge panel’s split decision that reinstated customers’ suit claiming the automaker submitted false emissions data to EPA, warning that the holding creates a dangerous intra-circuit split and conflicts with a separate ruling against Ford Motor Company. GM submitted a Sept. 18 petition for en banc review in Andrei Fenner, et al. v. GM, et al ., of the court’s Aug. 21...

EPA, State Regulators Warn GNP Stay Will Delay Ozone NAAQS Attainment

EPA air officials and some state regulators are preparing for likely delays in attainment of federal ozone standards after the Supreme Court stayed the agency’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate air rule, setting up tough decisions for regulators as litigation on the rule grinds forward in appellate courts. “The stay really poses a significant possibility that the downwind attainment schedules” for the 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) “will be disrupted,” EPA air chief Joe Goffman said at...

Environmentalists Seek Protections After EPA Enforcement At Carbon Well

An EPA enforcement action against one of the country’s first “Class VI” carbon sequestration wells is underscoring environmentalists’ concerns about leaks from the burgeoning technology even as the Biden administration is pressing to increase its deployment, with advocates calling for additional protective measures at other carbon capture and storage (CCS) sites. “What it tells me is that when we say things can and do go wrong, we’re absolutely correct,” said Earthjustice’s Jenny Cassel, senior attorney with the group’s Clean Energy...

States, Industry Defend Calls For High Court Stay Of Tightened MATS Rule

States and industry groups seeking a Supreme Court stay of EPA’s stricter Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for power plants are pushing back against arguments by the agency and its state allies that they have not met the legal standard to block a rule, saying those claims ignore “irreparable” harm to at least one plant and the power grid as a whole. “By EPA’s own calculations (which Applicants contend are far too low), the Rule will, at minimum, impose...

Partisan Divisions Swirl Regarding Oversight Of EPA’s BIL, IRA Programs

House lawmakers are sparring over how to address concerns about the capacity of EPA and its inspector general (IG) to adequately track the agency’s deployment of unprecedented funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), with Democrats asserting Republicans are failing to conduct constructive oversight of the agency. During a Sept. 19 hearing by the House energy panel’s environment subcommittee, EPA IG Sean O’ Donnell testified about several challenges facing the agency, including declining investments in...

D.C. Circuit denies rehearing on RFS ‘compliance alternative’

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has denied biofuels producers’ petition to rehear their challenge to EPA’s renewable fuel standard (RFS) “compliance alternative” for refiners, just days after rejecting a separate petition in the sprawling web of RFS litigation that targeted the agency’s denials of refinery compliance waivers. In brief Sept. 17 per curiam orders, the court without explanation rejected pro-ethanol group Growth Energy’s petitions for both panel and en banc rehearing of its...

Industry Pushes Bill To Ease CARB Harbor Craft Rule Amid Safety Concerns

The commercial harbor craft (CHC) industry is urging California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to sign into law a bill that would ease state air board emission rules by requiring any diesel particulate filter (DPF) retrofitted onto the engine of a CHC to include an override system that ensures it can maintain a safe level of propulsion in emergency situations. The bill, AB 1122 by Assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains (D-Bakersfield), would essentially amend the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) landmark 2022 CHC...

Lime Makers Challenge ‘Unnecessary And Counterproductive’ Air Rule

Companies that manufacture lime for use in construction, agriculture and other sectors are both suing EPA over its recently-tightened standards for their air toxics emissions and seeking administrative reconsideration of the measure, calling it excessively expensive, unlawful, “unnecessary” and “counterproductive.” The National Lime Association (NLA) filed a Sept. 13 petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking review of EPA’s July 16 control technology review rule, which added emissions limits for several pollutants including...

EPA Plans ‘Improvements’ To Reporting Rule But Faults ‘Misconceptions’

EPA officials say they have made “improvements” to the agency’s delayed Air Emission Reporting Requirements (AERR) rule that is intended to greatly expand air toxics reporting mandates, though they are pushing back against what one official says are “misconceptions” expressed by states and industry. In an Aug. 29 presentation to the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies’ (AAPCA) Fall Business Meeting in Raleigh, NC, Chet Wayland, director of the Air Quality Assessment Division in the Office of Air Quality Planning...

Backing EPA’s EJ Actions, EAB Denies Challenge To Region 8 Title V Permit

EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) is denying a challenge brought by a Utah tribe to Region 8’s Clean Air Act (CAA) permit for Deseret energy’s Bonanza power plant, agreeing with EPA that the agency was not required to address the tribe’s environmental justice (EJ) concerns because such policies are not currently enforceable. The tribe has “not demonstrated that review is warranted on any of the grounds presented,” an EAB panel said in a Sept. 10 decision in In Re: Deseret...

Louisiana Supreme Court denies Formosa permit appeals

The Louisiana Supreme Court is letting stand a decision that reinstated controversial air permits for Formosa Plastics’ massive planned petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, LA, after it rejected a trio of competing petitions from environmentalists and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ). The court Sept. 4 denied three petitions for a writ of certiorari in Rise St. James, et al. v. LDEQ , including two from environmentalists that asked it to again reject the permits and one...

EMA Complains CARB Plans Retroactive Enforcement Of ZEV Fleet Rule

Truck makers are charging that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) intends to retroactively enforce its Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) zero-emission truck rule once it receives a federal preemption waiver from EPA, and they are urging the federal agency to make clear that the rule can only be enforced prospectively after a waiver is granted. “The prospect of retroactive enforcement of CARB’s mobile source regulations is antithetical to the scope and express terms of federal preemption and the process for...

Environmentalists Applaud EPA OK Of L.A. Warehouse Indirect Source Rule

Environmentalists are applauding EPA’s recent approval of a novel “indirect source rule” (ISR) to reduce pollution from warehouses in California’s South Coast air basin as a state implementation plan (SIP) revision, while agreeing with others that the action will pave the way for other states to adopt similar measures to cut emissions in the absence of federal mobile source rules. “The green light from the EPA is a clear signal to other air districts across the country looking to address...

EPA Confirms Proposed Delay Of Regional Haze Program’s Third Phase

EPA air officials are confirming their intention to delay the third 10-year phase of the agency’s regional haze program, currently due to begin in 2029, as EPA fights to catch up with a backlog of state air plans for the program’s second phase that require approval amid pressure from environmentalists to act faster. In an Aug. 29 presentation at the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies’ (AAPCA) fall meeting in Raleigh, NC, Scott Mathias, director of EPA’s Air Quality Policy...

Public Health Groups Grow Impatient With Pace Of EPA’s NAAQS Reviews

Citing pending reviews of nitrogen oxides (NOx), ozone and particulate matter (PM) limits, public health groups are warning that EPA’s statutory reviews of air quality standards are again falling far behind schedule, though in the case of PM, the health groups and the agency are at odds over when the statutory five-year review clock starts. In Sept. 9 comments on EPA’s proposed consent decree schedule for reviewing the “primary” or health-based national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for NOx, nine...

EPA, Allies Resist GOP States’ Push For Supreme Court Stay Of MATS

EPA, allied states and environmental groups are pushing back against GOP states’ and industry petitions for the Supreme Court to stay the newly-tightened mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for power plants while litigation on the merits proceeds, saying the petitioners misread the Clean Air Act and would not succeed on the merits. In a Sept 13 reply filed in State of North Dakota, et al. v. EPA, et al. and associated cases, EPA says those seeking a stay...

AAPCA announces new executive director

The Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA), which represents air regulators from 21 mainly GOP-led states and a host of local air agencies, Sept. 13 announced the appointment of a new executive director, Morgan Dickie, who has been serving in the role in an interim capacity since May. Dickie was previously an Environmental Health Specialist for the Nashville Metro Public Health Department, where she managed quality assurance for the ambient air monitoring program, AAPCA says. “Ms. Dickie joined AAPCA...

Appeals Court Denies Biofuels Push For Rehearing Of RFS Waivers Suit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has denied biofuel producers’ bid for panel rehearing of its pivotal July ruling that scrapped EPA’s denial of dozens of small refinery waivers from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a decision that upended EPA’s policy that has seen the agency deny all recent waiver requests. In a Sept. 12 order , the panel of Judges Nina Pillard, Neomi Rao and Florence Pan without elaboration denies Growth Energy’s petition for...

D.C. Circuit Grants EPA Remand Of Record For Good Neighbor Air Rule

A federal appellate court has granted EPA’s request to remand the rulemaking record for its stayed Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate air rule, allowing the agency to respond to Supreme Court criticism that it failed to explain how the rule can function with only a fraction of the intended states participating. In a Sept. 12 per curiam order , Judges Patricia Millet, Nina Pillard and Florence Pan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit...

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