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.

Senators Say EPA’s CCS Permit Delays Clash With Power Plant GHG Plan

Multiple senators are pressing EPA to speed permitting of carbon dioxide injection wells at the federal and state level, with some lawmakers also combining their pitch with claims that the agency’s power plant greenhouse gas standards premised on carbon capture and storage (CCS) are inconsistent with the current permitting pace. The calls, during a Nov. 2 Senate energy committee hearing, come as EPA officials are touting their carbon permitting efforts, including the new availability of almost $50 million in grants...

Industry Steps Up Opposition To CARB’s Removal Of Chrome-6 Rule Waiver

Industry groups are stepping up their opposition to the California air board’s 11th-hour deletion of key exemptions from phaseout and other regulatory requirements that the board included in recently adopted rules governing hexavalent chromium (chrome-6) at metal-plating operations, charging the action may violate state law. “The modifications remove provisions that plating facilities have been relying upon,” states an Oct. 20 letter to California Air Resources Board (CARB) Executive Officer Steve Cliff from the Metal Finishing Association of Northern California, Metal...

Parties In Talks On ‘Contingency Measures’ Suits Amid EPA Policy Struggle

EPA, state and local officials and environmentalists are in talks to resolve a pair of lawsuits related to proposed Los Angeles regional air district “contingency measures” (CMs) that seek to ensure a state implementation plan (SIP) attains federal air quality standards for ozone, an issue that regulators are struggling to address. Parties in the two cases -- South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) v. Michael S. Regan and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, et al. v. EPA...

EPA Signs Rule Easing Waiver Path For State Locomotive Air Regulations

EPA has finalized without change a long-expected measure that eases the regulatory path for California and other states to obtain a preemption waiver for their emissions standards for used locomotives, after officials severed the policy from still-pending federal emissions rules for heavy-duty trucks. “We received overwhelming support from commenters, as well as a few adverse comments,” the agency says in the text of its final rule that EPA Administrator Michael Regan signed Nov. 1 ahead of publication in the Federal...

Industry Coalition Urges White House To Ensure EPA Retains PM2.5 Limits

More than 70 national and regional industry trade associations are urging White House officials not to allow EPA to tighten federal standards for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), warning of dire economic consequences should the agency do so, as a final decision on the issue approaches in the coming weeks. In their Oct. 31 letter to White House Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients, the groups including the National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute and many others...

EPA Floats Eased Waste Rules To Encourage Recycling Of ‘Spent’ HFCs

EPA is proposing eased waste standards to encourage recycling of “spent” hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that are often used as refrigerants but act as potent greenhouse gases, with the provisions seeking to complement a broader rule to limit leaks in appliances and grow the nascent HFC reclamation sector. Most of EPA’s Oct. 19 proposal addressing HFC management was developed under the 2020 American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act that created a comprehensive HFC control program at EPA. However, the agency alongside that...

Environmentalists Make Final Push On RMP Rule But Fear Industry Influence

Environmentalists are pushing to toughen EPA’s final risk management program (RMP) rule in a series of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) meetings while warning that the agency is working too closely with industry on the policy, including one source who says it has shown trade associations the regulation, but not citizen groups. “[I]ndustry seems to know what’s in the final rule,” while environmental groups and fenceline communities that are “the most impacted by the rule” do not, an official...

Denka Asks Court To Reject EPA IRIS Value As ‘Bright-Line’ Air Toxics Limit

Denka Performance Elastomer (DPE) is raising new counterclaims in its challenge to EPA’s novel enforcement action over emissions from its Louisiana facility, asking a federal court to reject the agency’s first-time effort to use an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) value as an air toxics limit because officials have never before used such a value as a “bright-line standard.” DPE makes the argument in an Oct. 25 “amended counterclaim” in its opposition to EPA’s Clean Air Act section 303 emergency...

Public health groups urge EPA to grant California air waivers

A coalition of over 20 public health groups led by the American Lung Association (ALA) is urging EPA to quickly grant Clean Air Act waivers sought by California to authorize four state clean air programs, addressing “advanced clean cars,” heavy-duty truck low nitrogen oxides (NOx) standards, harbor craft and small off-road engines. “California’s pending waiver requests represent policies projected to save thousands and over $50 billion in public health benefits. EPA must act to ensure life-saving clean air standards related...


States Urge Critics To Drop Suits Over Ozone Rule As EPA Weighs Expansion

East Coast states are urging their “upwind” neighbors to drop a slew of lawsuits aimed at halting EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) for limiting interstate ozone, warning that the cuts required to improve public health and meet statutory deadlines are at risk as the Biden administration weighs a new plan that might further enlarge the rule’s scope. In comments submitted to EPA Oct. 30, the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC), a regional air body comprising 12 states in the Northeast and...

EPA Tells High Court There Is No Basis To Stay Good Neighbor Air Rule

EPA is urging the Supreme Court to reject a request from three states and several industry groups for a full stay of the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate ozone rule, arguing that the rule’s reduced scope following lower courts’ narrower stays does not render it unworkable or retroactive, and that critics both lack standing and will likely fail on the merits. The applicants “have not established that their case-specific and record-intensive objections to the Rule would warrant this Court’s review...

Petitioners Revive Case Over Trump Ozone Limits After Lengthy EPA Review

Democratic-led states and environmentalists are restarting their appellate challenge to the Trump EPA’s 2020 ozone standards, targeting the prior administration’s procedural and policy decisions to retain the 2015 standards while criticizing the agency’s decision to keep “secondary” welfare-based limits the same as health-based standards. After the Biden administration’s lengthy reconsideration that eventually led to EPA deciding to retain the 2020 standards, briefing has now resumed in State of New York, et al. v. EPA, et al ., before the U.S...

EPA Faces Lawsuit Notice Regarding Long-Stalled GHG NAAQS Petition

Environmental groups, now joined by two states and a tribe, are giving EPA 180 days’ notice that they will file suit to force EPA to respond to a 2009 petition seeking a national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for greenhouse gases, after the Biden EPA has not acted on the petition even after withdrawing Trump officials’ 11th-hour denial. The Oct. 30 notice of intent (NOI) to sue claims EPA has unreasonably delayed responding to the December 2009 petition to establish...

Groups Fight CARB’s SIP ‘Contingency Measure’ Based On Draft EPA Guide

California air officials have approved a rule to tighten the state’s vehicle smog check program as a “contingency measure” for the state implementation plan (SIP) to meet federal air quality standards, but environmental justice (EJ) groups that sued the board to compel such action are charging it fails to meet legal mandates and is inappropriately based on draft EPA guidance. “The smog check contingency measures are based on a draft -- and I want to emphasize that, ‘draft,’ -- guidance...

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Summary

Testimony Of Erin Simon

Testimony Of Markus Eriksen


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