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.

D.C. Circuit cancels GNP oral arguments

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is canceling previously scheduled April 25 oral arguments in a suit challenging EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) but stopped short of granting the Trump EPA’s request to remand the Biden-era rule that seeks to limit ozone transport. The court in an April 14 order in Utah, et al. v. EPA, et al. removed the case from its April 25 oral argument calendar and put it on hold. The...

EPA Grants Air Toxics Rule Exemptions To Nearly 50 Coal Power Plants

EPA is detailing its approval of two-year compliance exemptions to nearly 50 coal-fired power plants from the Biden administration’s update to the Mercury & Air Toxics Standards (MATS), prompting strong criticism from environmentalists that the move is an “offensive” use of a previously little-employed Clean Air Act (CAA) provision. EPA on April 14 posted to its website a list of 68 units at 47 coal plants that have been granted the exemption. The facilities range from large sources, including five...

EPA Presses Court To Stay Any Injunction Unfreezing ‘Green Bank’ Grants

EPA is signaling an aggressive response to any district court injunction restoring Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) grant recipients’ access to $14 billion for low-carbon energy projects, filing a “contingent” motion that the court stay any such order even before it has issued a ruling on the plaintiffs’ call for a preliminary injunction. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is expected to issue some type of injunction in the case, though it remains...

EPA Faces Statutory Hurdles For Expected Push To Scrap GHG Reporting

EPA is reportedly preparing to eliminate its greenhouse gas reporting mandates for nearly all industrial sources, though multiple statutory provisions could stand in its way, including Congress’s directive to develop its 2009 GHG reporting rules and longstanding carbon dioxide reporting requirements for electric utilities, according to observers. “EPA is going to have to show that it has legal authority for repeal, and if so, it has a reasoned, non-arbitrary basis. That's a loser for them,” one environmental lawyer claims. While...

Senators Introduce Sweeping Wildfire Bill Promoting ‘Prescribed’ Fire

A bipartisan group of Western senators is introducing a bill to mitigate the risks and effects of wildfires in the region, promoting use of “prescribed” fire and establishing a new interagency body to coordinate policy that includes EPA supporting federal land managers with air quality modeling and guidance to provide regulatory exemptions. The draft legislation , dubbed the Fix Our Forests Act, was introduced April 11 by Sens. Alex Padilla (D-CA), Tim Sheehy (R-MT), John Curtis (R-UT) and John Hickenlooper...

EPA Reviews Aerosol Air Rule, Granting Industry Petition Over Start Date

EPA is reconsidering a late Biden-era rule setting air emissions standards for aerosol products, winning a pause in litigation over the measure so it can act on industry’s petition for reconsideration claiming that the Biden EPA unreasonably set a tight July 17 compliance deadline that producers cannot meet. In a brief April 10 per curiam order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit grants EPA’s request for abeyance in the suit, Coalition for Fair Aerosol...

5th Circuit Allows Suit Seeking Petrochemical Plant Ban In ‘Cancer Alley’

The 5th Circuit is reversing a federal district court and allowing environmental justice (EJ) groups to proceed with their civil rights suit seeking a moratorium on new and expanded petrochemical plants in Louisiana’s “cancer alley,” offering a win for advocates even as the Trump administration is broadly attacking such EJ work. The April 9 decision from a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Inclusive Louisiana, et al. v. St. James Parish, et...

Environmentalists sue EPA over Phoenix, California ozone plans

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Center for Environmental Health are challenging EPA’s failure to find that the Phoenix metropolitan area and Mariposa County, CA, are violating federal ozone standards, in an effort to force the agency to “bump up” the areas to worsened “nonattainment” status. In the April 8 suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the groups say EPA has missed a Clean Air Act deadline to determine if the areas...

Trump Said To Cancel Climate Review Contract, Amid EPA GHG Rollbacks

Reports that the Trump administration has scaled back or terminated a contract supporting staff for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) are sparking fears that officials will effectively kill or significantly repurpose a congressionally mandated federal climate assessment in ways that could accelerate climate misinformation. The reports are also prompting questions about whether the administration’s climate science personnel action might set the stage for future release of information that the administration might use to inform, or later defend, a...

Presidential MATS Order May Exempt Dozens Of Coal Plants In 12 States

President Donald Trump’s executive order granting coal-fired power plants an emergency compliance waiver from the Biden EPA’s tougher mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) appears likely to exempt at least 27 plants in 12 states where the agency anticipated significant compliance costs, though the waivers might apply even more widely. In the April 8 order , Trump exempts certain unnamed plants from compliance with the updated MATS rule for two years, effectively extending the rule’s compliance deadline of July 8,...

Lawyers Expect Loper To Limit Deregulation, GHG Risk Finding Reversal

Legal experts say the Supreme Court’s decision last year ending deference to agencies’ statutory interpretation is likely to put some constraints on the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, particularly EPA’s planned rollback of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding given statutory language supporting the agency’s longstanding approach. The decision, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo , “will constrain, I think, both aggressively pro-environmental administrations and aggressively deregulatory administrations, like the Trump administration,” argued Jeff Holmstead, former Bush EPA air chief and now partner...

Trump’s Orders Unlikely To Bolster Coal Sector Amid Legal Doubts

President Donald Trump’s latest executive orders (EOs) seeking to revive the coal industry are unlikely to achieve their aims due to the industry’s poor outlook, experts say, while noting the actions the EOs require are likely to face legal challenges and appear to lack rigorous legal review prior to release. “Executive orders don’t change the law . . . so can’t bring back coal,” Nathan Richardson, a professor of law at Jacksonville University and a fellow at Resources for the...

Amid EPA Cutbacks, State Air Regulators Urge Congress To Boost Funds

Despite a wave of spending cuts underway at EPA, state air regulators are urging congressional appropriators to boost their funding to implement Clean Air Act (CAA) programs, warning that funding cuts to states would spur “profound” environmental and economic harms to Americans. In April 4 testimony to the House Appropriations Committee panel on interior and environment, the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), representing air agencies in 40 states, urged appropriators to adequately fund state activities in the EPA...

EPA Defends Delay Of California Valley PM Attainment In 9th Circuit Case

EPA is pressing the 9th Circuit to deny environmentalists’ challenge of the agency’s approval of a one-year deadline extension for California’s San Joaquin Valley to attain a 1997 annual fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standard, arguing the decision comports with the Clean Air Act (CAA), the agency’s implementing regulations, and a 9th Circuit precedent. “First, both of Petitioners’ arguments conflict with this Court’s well-reasoned decision in Association of Irritated Residents [v. EPA] ,” states EPA’s April 9 answering brief in Little...

Trump Orders Push To Repeal ‘Unlawful’ Rules, Sunset Energy Regulations

President Donald Trump is stepping up his administration’s aggressive deregulatory agenda, issuing a memorandum requiring the repeal of rules that officials deem “unlawful” under recent Supreme Court precedents while also ordering EPA and nine other agencies to begin considering a “sunset” of rules related to energy production. Trump on April 9 signed a presidential memorandum demanding the immediate repeal of any regulations the administration deems unlawful under recent high court rulings including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, West Virginia v....

Trump Issues Series Of Orders To ‘Reinvigorate’ Coal Sector, Ease Hurdles

President Donald Trump is seeking to “reinvigorate” the coal sector -- issuing a series of orders directing EPA and other officials to take multiple sweeping actions to extend the life of aging plants, expedite permits, and provide financial support for new mining, though environmentalists are blasting the move as propping up a “dirty” and uneconomic fuel. “From now on, we’ll ensure that our nation’s critically needed coal plants . . . remain online and fully operational -- they’re always going...

Biofuels Industry Eyes Larger RFS Volumes If Tariffs Spur Lost Exports

The biofuels sector is prepared to push for renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending volumes larger than what it sought as part of an agreement with major oil sector companies that also blend biofuels, in a scenario in which other countries retaliate against U.S. tariffs with measures targeting American biofuel exports, according to an industry source. Tariffs recently introduced by President Donald Trump, or going into effect April 9, have created uncertainty in markets for U.S. biofuels and feedstocks, just...

Order On Reinvigorating Coal

Fact Sheet On Reinvigorating Clean Coal

Order On Strengthening Grid Reliability

Fact Sheet On Strengthening Grid Reliability


To Enable Air Waivers, EPA Rescinds International Emissions Guidance

EPA has rescinded its guidance on when states can discount air pollution from foreign countries to avoid being “bumped up” to worsened “nonattainment” with federal air standards, in a move that clears the way for Western states, including some that have Democratic leaders, to avoid such bump-ups, and resulting pollution control mandates. “Americans should not be harmed by other countries that do not have the same environmental standards we have in the United States,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, announcing...

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