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 Guide Seeks To Bar States From Curbing ‘Prescribed Fires’ In SIPs

EPA has issued new guidance that seeks to bar states from including in their air quality state implementation plans (SIPs) any measures that would impede “strategic” use of prescribed fires, a measure that seeks to quickly boost prescribed burning as a related overhaul of the agency’s “exceptional events” policy stalls. The new policy, spelled out in an Oct.16 guidance signed by EPA air office chief Aaron Szabo, is generally in line with a Trump administration push backed by Western states...

Biodiesel producers warn EPA over effects of RFS waivers

Producers of biodiesel and related fuels are warning EPA over billions of dollars in adverse economic impacts that would result from its proposal to only partially compensate for renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending waivers for refiners when the agency issues final blending volumes for 2026 and 2027. “U.S. soybean farmers and processors could lose between $3.2 billion and $7.5 billion in crop value over the next two years if EPA does not completely reallocate recently exempted RFS volumes,” says...

Democratic States Challenge Solar Grants Repeal In Federal Claims Court

A group of Democratic-led states that received grants under EPA’s $7 billion Solar for All program is challenging the Trump administration’s termination of those grants in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, offering the first example of such a case after EPA has pushed to move a variety of grant-related cases to that court, where remedies are limited. Plaintiffs in numerous cases challenging EPA and other agency grant terminations filed complaints in district courts, but EPA has repeatedly asserted that...

EPA Permit Guide Eases SO2 Attainment Demonstrations For Developers

EPA in a recently released guidance is easing industry permit applicants’ ability to show compliance with its “secondary” federal air standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2), advising state regulators that compliance with the health-based “primary” limit also shows attainment of the two secondary limits that remain in force. The Biden EPA in 2024 modified the secondary national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for SO2 in a rule that additionally left secondary limits for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) unchanged...

Newsom Vetoes Bill To Limit SCAQMD Rules On Ports, Citing MOU Effort

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has vetoed a bill to limit actions by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) to impose new or additional air pollution-reduction requirements on sources operating at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, citing ongoing efforts by district and port officials to reach a voluntary agreement. “[I] am encouraged by the productive discussions between the SCAQMD and the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to identify and advance prudent air quality...

API Argues Biden EPA’s ‘Errors’ Justify Extending Methane Rule Deadlines

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is claiming that EPA’s controversial compliance extension for oil and gas sector methane controls is justified because of “errors” in the Biden-era rulemaking, as the industry seeks to shore up the legal rationale for EPA’s compliance delay plan first issued as an interim final regulation (IFR). The input to the agency, focused specifically on the IFR’s compliance delays for new and modified facilities, surfaces in Sept. 30 comments . However, the IFR, which extended several...

Industry Urges California To Speed New Rules Allowing E15 Gasoline Sales

Ethanol producers and other industry representatives are urging California Air Resources Board (CARB) officials to speed policy guidance and a new rulemaking to allow for the first-time sale of gasoline containing up to 15 percent ethanol (E15) in the state, including by quickly addressing emissions, safety, equipment and labeling issues. “We strongly encourage CARB to recognize that equipment certified for E10, particularly stage 2 vapor recovery systems, should also be deemed certified for E15, at least on an interim basis,”...

Landmark CRA Ruling May Open Door To Reissuing Blocked EPA Rules

A precedential appellate ruling could open the door to a future Democratic administration reissuing versions of EPA rules struck down under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), administrative law experts say, though one source cautions that any effort to do so “would be far from a slam dunk.” In an Aug. 13 ruling in Ohio Telecom Association, et al. v. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), et al. , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld a 2024 FCC measure...

EPA Faces Daunting Air Toxics Agenda With Pressure On Staff, Funding

EPA is aiming to complete a slate of rulemakings this year and next to review or reconsider numerous air toxics rules, with some in response to judicial deadlines and several others spurred by the Trump administration’s self-imposed timetable for rolling back Biden-era regulations, amid declining EPA staffing and funding levels. In its recently released regulatory agenda of upcoming rulemakings, EPA outlines Biden air toxics rules it intends to reconsider, some in parallel with regular reviews required periodically by the Clean...

Groups vow suit over EPA failure to act on cities’ ozone plans

Two environmental groups are threatening EPA with a lawsuit over the agency’s failure to approve or deny ozone standards compliance plans from multiple major metropolitan areas, including New York, Chicago and others, questioning the effectiveness of EPA’s push to clear a backlog of plans. In a Sept. 25 notice of intent to sue letter , the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Center for Environmental Health tell EPA of their intention to sue after 60 days unless it approves...

Court Lets Stand EPA’s Interim Rule Pausing Steel Sector’s Air Toxics Limits

The D.C. Circuit is letting stand EPA’s interim final rule (IFR) extending air toxics compliance deadlines for the steel industry, rejecting environmentalists’ request to vacate or stay the measure in a possible sign of how it will adjudicate similar IFRs for oil and gas and aerosol coatings sectors that also turn on a “good cause” procedural waiver. In a brief per curiam order issued Oct. 10 in Clean Air Council, et al. v. EPA , Judges Patricia Millett, Nina...

Industry Pushes To End Suit Over Lack Of ESA Consultation For NAAQS

Industry groups are urging an appellate court to reject environmentalists’ suit charging EPA failed to consult on Endangered Species Act (ESA) issues when it issued “secondary” national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) to protect the environment, arguing that the agency can never consult on such issues when reviewing NAAQS. In their Oct. 6 amicus brief filed in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v. EPA, et al. , the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and groups representing refiners, cement producers and...

Oil & Gas Sector Cites Global Markets As Reason To Retain GHG Reporting

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is highlighting global energy markets as a reason to maintain some level of EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting requirements, a pitch that supplements separate industry concerns that scuttling the program could compromise the ability to claim federal tax credits for carbon storage and clean hydrogen production. “Maintaining credible reporting is essential to sustaining U.S. competitiveness and ensuring that U.S. [liquefied natural gas (LNG)] -- already among the lowest-emissions options available -- remains a cornerstone of global...

Power companies seek to intervene in West Virginia haze SIP suit

Power companies are seeking to intervene in environmentalists’ lawsuit challenging EPA’s approval of West Virginia’s regional haze plan that first established an eased national policy for such plans, which may feature prominently in a coming revision of national haze regulations. In an Oct. 6 motion , Appalachian Power Company, Kentucky Power Company, Monongahela Power Company, and Wheeling Power Company ask to join the suit , National Parks Conservation Association, et al., v. EPA, et al. , pending before the U.S...

Suit Over EPA Waiver For CARB’s SORE Rule Proceeds After Stay Denied

The 9th Circuit is preparing to hear industry litigation challenging the Biden-EPA’s Clean Air Act preemption waiver allowing California to enforce its rules setting zero-emissions mandates for most new small off-road engines (SORE), after a panel denied a motion by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) to stay the agency’s action. The panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit late last month denied the industry request for a stay, citing circuit precedent in Nken v. Holder...

NASEM Report Urges EPA To Finalize, Update Cumulative Impact Framework

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) is urging EPA to update and finalize a Biden-era interim framework on how to assess cumulative pollution and other impacts, though the agency says it has “paused” work on the issue. NASEM’s ad hoc committee on the issue released its Oct. 9 report titled “State of the Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment,” which provides recommendations on the state of the science surrounding cumulative impacts...

EPA Backs U.S. Steel In Air Permit Disputes Ahead Of Narrower Title V Rule

EPA is upholding complaints by U.S. Steel Corp. that local Pittsburgh-area regulators unlawfully set new substantive pollution control requirements in Title V air operating permits, providing possible insight into a pending final EPA rule that is expected to narrowly define which “applicable requirements” may be included in Title V permits. In its Sept.16 responses to petitions by the company over Title V permits written by local air regulators at the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) for two steel plants, EPA...

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