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 Urged To Tighten GHG Reporting For Sale Of Oil & Gas Facilities

Environmental groups are pressing EPA to strengthen proposed updates to oil and gas methane reporting mandates concerning facility ownership changes, to ensure that methane emissions do not escape reporting requirements as companies look to limit their obligations under an upcoming statutory methane fee. This call, however, comes as oil and gas groups are pressing the agency to minimize reporting burdens on new owners of facilities for emissions that occurred prior to an ownership change. The dueling views highlight the economic...

DOD, California Air District Clash With EPA Over NSR Air Plan Disapproval

EPA is facing a lawsuit from a California air district and a major defense contractor over the agency’s disapproval of the district’s air quality plan, warning EPA that its action could stymie sensitive projects important to national security -- an issue that the Defense Department (DOD) has also raised. In a lawsuit filed July 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Antelope Valley Air Quality Management (AVAQMD) District is suing EPA to overturn the agency’s July...

Sierra Club sues EPA over 13 states’ missing ozone plans

Weeks after EPA shelved plans to toughen its federal ozone limits, Sierra Club is suing over the agency’s failure to find that 13 states have not supplied required state implementation plan (SIP) modifications for attaining current limits, a step the agency is required to take that triggers a two-year clock to impose its own plans instead. In its suit filed Sept. 29 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Sierra Club says EPA neglected to issue the...

EPA Proposes Tighter VOC Limits For Thousands Of Fuel Storage Tanks

EPA is proposing to tighten limits for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from more than 9,000 tanks storing petroleum and other organic liquids, in a plan that revises limits for new, reconstructed and modified tanks, and includes additional monitoring, maintenance, and startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM) provisions. In the proposal scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Oct. 4, EPA is proposing to modify the new source performance standards (NSPS) for the sector. The plan introduces new vapor pressure...

Industry Groups Sue EPA Over Partial Stay Of Good Neighbor Air Rule

Power, pulp and paper, natural gas, mining and other industry groups are suing EPA over the agency’s July 31 rule partially staying the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate ozone regulation, in litigation that will likely press for a stay of the entire GNP pending resolution of numerous lawsuits. In a series of suits recently filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that are now consolidated under National Mining Association (NMA) v. EPA , industry...

Groups Split On Use Of ‘Empirical Data’ In EPA Methane Reporting Plan

Industry groups and environmentalists are divided about how EPA should implement a statutory directive to rely more on “empirical data” in its oil and gas methane reporting program, which is taking on increasing importance because it will serve as the basis for calculating companies’ obligations under a new methane fee. In recently filed comments on EPA’s reporting proposal, industry groups charged that EPA failed to encourage advanced monitoring technology, while environmentalists renewed their push for greater reliance on “top-down” monitoring...

EPA seeks limited rehearing in Virgin Islands refinery PSD suit

EPA is seeking limited rehearing of a federal appeals court’s decision that effectively gutted the agency’s policy requiring revised new source review (NSR) permits for shuttered facilities that subsequently restart, asking the court to correct inaccuracies that relate to the separate regional haze program, but leaving the permit finding untouched. In its Sept. 29 petition for panel rehearing , EPA seeks a narrow technical correction to the July 25 finding by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit...

Signaling Path To Circuit Split, Panel Leans To Refiners In RFS Waiver Case

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit appears headed toward a ruling in favor of refiners in consolidated litigation against EPA’s denial of compliance waivers sought by small refiners from renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending obligations, an outcome that could precede and contradict a ruling on the same issue in the D.C. Circuit. At oral argument Oct. 2 in Calumet Shreveport Refining, et al. v. EPA , a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit appeared split 2-1...

OMB Launches Review Of EPA’s Final Oil & Gas Methane Standards

EPA has sent its draft final oil and gas sector methane standards to the White House for inter-agency review, signaling that the long-pending regulation could be completed in the coming months. The rule would strengthen methane performance standards for new facilities, while setting first-time emissions guidelines for existing oil and gas operations that would be implemented via state compliance strategies. A draft final version of the rule arrived at the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) on Sept. 28. OMB...

Environmentalists Sue EPA To Force Review Of Federal NOx Standards

Citing scientific evidence requiring tougher limits to protect public health, environmental groups are suing EPA to force the agency to review “primary” health-based national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for nitrogen oxides (NOx) by a date certain, after the agency in May missed its five-year statutory deadline to review the limits. In their suit filed Sept. 28 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Environmental Health and Sierra Club ask...

Suit

Letter To EPA Administrator Michael Regan


Expanding Good Neighbor Stay, EPA Eyes Extra Time For Compliance

EPA is expanding its stay of the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) rule to six more states where courts have effectively stayed the rule’s application, and is suggesting it will provide more time for states and industry to implement the rule’s interstate ozone control mandates should judicial stays be lifted -- a blow to environmentalists seeking swift compliance. In an interim final rule scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Sept. 29, EPA stays the Good Neighbor rule in Alabama,...

Environmentalists sue EPA over SIP inaction

Environmental group Our Children’s Earth Foundation (OCE) is suing EPA over its failure to act within statutory deadlines on dozens of state implementation plan (SIP) modifications for attaining federal air quality standards, submitted by Southern and Western states over decades. In one lawsuit filed Sept. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, OCE asks the court to set binding deadlines on EPA to approve or disapprove SIP submissions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and...

Uhlmann Orders OECA To Include Climate In Host Of Enforcement Actions

EPA’s enforcement chief is directing officials to prioritize including climate mitigation and adaptation elements throughout the agency’s enforcement actions, arguing this would take important steps to reduce greenhouse gases that cause climate change and boost resilience to climate-linked disasters. “To meet the urgency of this moment, I am requiring that EPA’s enforcement and compliance program: (1) prioritize enforcement and compliance actions to mitigate climate change; (2) include climate adaptation and resilience in case conclusions whenever appropriate,” Office of Enforcement &...

Industry, Environmentalists Spar Over EPA’s Air Rule For Copper Smelters

Industry groups are protesting EPA’s proposed tougher air toxics rules for copper smelters, claiming they breach agency policy on cost-effectiveness, with substantial costs and no “meaningful” health benefit, while environmentalists are pressing the agency to instead tighten the plan further to reduce “glaring environmental injustices.” EPA took public comment through Sept. 22 on its July 24 supplemental proposal that adds further emissions limits to an initial proposal released in January 2022, which tightens limits pursuant to a Clean Air Act-mandated...

Environmentalists Urge EPA To Toughen Air Toxics Plant Classification Rule

Environmentalists are urging EPA to toughen its proposed rule governing how industrial facilities are classified for regulating air toxics, charging the agency’s proposal does not go far enough in limiting emissions after officials sought to preserve a Trump-era policy that allows facilities to downgrade their regulatory status while adding new permit ‘safeguards.’ “This rule allows industry backsliding on dangerous air toxic pollutants and does not do enough to reverse the Trump rollback of important protections which have been in place...

D.C. Circuit Declines To Stay Good Neighbor Rule, Opening High Court Path

Correction Appended A divided three-judge appellate panel in Washington, D.C., has rejected industry and states’ push to stay EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan air rule, preserving hope for the embattled interstate program, but opening splits with regional appeals courts that could point toward a return to the Supreme Court on the issue even before the lower courts rule on the merits. In a brief Sept. 25 per curium order , two judges on the of the U.S. Court of...

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