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.

House Republicans Decry ‘Onslaught’ Of EPA Rules On Small Business

House Small Business Committee Republicans are warning EPA of “major” adverse impacts on small business of its rules on sterilizers, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), power plant greenhouse gases and other issues, asking the agency for more information on such impacts, and venting their frustration over compliance costs at a panel hearing. In a Feb. 14 letter to Administrator Michael Regan, panel Republicans led by Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) write “regarding five of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules and...

EPA ‘Corrects’ Electric Steel Furnace Rule, Narrowing Scope Of Litigation

EPA is making technical “corrections” to its 2023 regulation that tightened emissions standards for electric arc furnaces (EAFs) used in steel recycling, likely narrowing the scope of a pending court challenge to that policy even as it is weighing a separate rule for integrated steel plants and faces industry protests over air limits for iron ore production. The “corrections and clarifications are being made to address unintended and inadvertent errors in the recently finalized standards,” EPA says in its interim...

Michigan Groups Press DOJ For Equity Safeguards, SEP In Air Settlement

Michigan environmental groups are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to strengthen a proposed consent decree addressing emissions violations at a scrap metal yard near Flint, including the addition of a supplemental environmental project (SEP) they say is necessary to “truly redress [13] years of violations in this environmental justice community.” Flint-area groups and individuals, represented by Earthjustice and the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, made the request in Jan. 31 comments on the proposed settlement in United States, et...

EPA Seeks To Delay Denka Trial Pending Final Chloroprene Air Rule

EPA is asking a federal district court to delay a high-stakes trial on the legality of its novel effort to use emergency Clean Air Act powers to force a Louisiana facility located in an environmental justice community to cut chloroprene releases, aiming to push any decision until after the agency finalizes a rule expected to set strict new emission limits for the chemical. But the target of the suit is already opposing the move, and arguing instead that the delay...

EPA Sets Implementation Timeline For Newly Strengthened PM2.5 NAAQS

EPA is laying out its timetable for states and the agency to implement its tightened national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), with the first designations of areas of the country as meeting or violating the limit targeted for 2026 and compliance deadlines beginning six years later in 2032. States will have until Feb. 7, 2025, to designate areas as attaining the new annual limit of 9 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) or as being in...


Court Weighs eBay’s Bid To Dismiss Novel EPA Suit Over Banned Products

The online auction site eBay is urging a federal district court to dismiss EPA’s “unprecedented” enforcement suit alleging that the site sold products subject to a TSCA ban on many methylene chloride uses, as well as others restricted by air and pesticides rules, as the parties battle over whether the company can be considered a “seller” under any of those laws. “eBay does not ‘sell’ or ‘distribute’ items listed on its platform because eBay does not hold or transfer title...

West Virginia advances bill barring use of citizen air data in suits

The West Virginia House has advanced legislation that would ban use of citizen-collected air monitoring data in lawsuits, sending the bill to the Senate amid warnings from community groups that the restriction would make it more difficult to hold polluting industries accountable for excess emissions. According to a summary of H.B. 5018 , it requires the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to provide regulatory oversight and authority governing community air monitoring programs “to ensure proper standards for data...

Kansas Rejects EPA’s ‘Arbitrary,’ ‘Burdensome’ Dismissal Of Haze Plan

Kansas is criticizing EPA’s proposed disapproval of the state’s plan for reducing regional haze as arbitrary, unjustified and in excess of Clean Air Act requirements, in the first of what may be several fights between the agency and states over their plans to implement the second phase of the regional haze program that extends out to 2028. In Jan. 31 comments , the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) rejects EPA’s argument that the state wrongly avoided an in-depth...

California OAL Denies Stellantis Challenge To CARB 2020 Vehicle GHG Deals

California’s Office of Administrative Law (OAL) is rejecting a petition from Stellantis -- the manufacturer of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles -- to declare the state air board’s 2020 agreements with five major automakers regarding vehicle greenhouse gas standards through model year 2026 as illegal underground regulations. The administrative denial appears to pave the way for a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) by Stellantis subsidiary FCA US LLC. “OAL declines to accept your petition. Our decision in...

EPA Eases Exceptional Event Waivers To Meet PM2.5 Limit Amid Fire Threat

EPA is moving to ease states’ use of “exceptional events” waivers to cope with the impact of wildfire smoke as they seek to attain its tougher federal limit for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), crafting tools to help exempt fire-driven air quality data from compliance and support an expansion of “prescribed fire” to prevent uncontrolled blazes. The new annual national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5 set at 9 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) will create implementation challenges for states...

EPA Issues First-Time Mercury Air Limits For Taconite Iron Ore Production

EPA has finalized its rule imposing first-time limits on mercury emissions from taconite iron ore production and setting tough new numeric limits for other pollutants previously regulated using a “surrogate” pollutant, rejecting environmentalists’ push for tougher-still requirements while overriding industry resistance. In the rule signed by Administrator Michael Regan Jan. 31, but not yet published in the Federal Register , EPA sets the mercury (Hg) limits in order to comply with the April 2020 precedent of the U.S. Court of...


CBO Sees Higher IRA Costs From EV Credit Popularity, EPA Auto Rules

New Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis roughly doubles the estimated cost of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) climate and clean energy incentives, citing greater projected uptake of tax credits for electric vehicles (EV) in part because of demand spurred by EPA’s pending vehicle emissions standards. In addition, the office is also expecting greater popularity of IRA-supported investments in renewable power and battery manufacturing. The revised estimates, released Feb. 7 in a broader 10-year outlook for the federal budget , underscore the...

Facing Pressure, EPA Eases Plan To Tighten Air Toxics Limits For Lime Kilns

Under pressure from Congress and industry groups, EPA is easing its plan requiring nearly three dozen lime manufacturing plants to curb their toxic air emissions, making a series of changes to a proposed rule that will see expected reductions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) drop by nearly 50 percent. In a supplemental proposal scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Feb. 9, EPA modifies its January 2023 proposal, making a series of technical corrections, revising stringency calculations and providing...


EPA Urged To Use Combustor Rule To Gather PFAS Data For Future Limits

Environmentalists are urging EPA to use its recently proposed rule toughening emissions standards for large municipal waste combustors (LMWC) to gather PFAS data that could be used to regulate the chemicals in the future, though they say the agency should regulate several other pollutants in any final LMWC rule. “EPA should use this rulemaking opportunity to gather data on existing emissions of PFAS to support a future rulemaking requiring emissions reduction,” Colin Parts, an attorney with Earthjustice’s Community Partnerships Program,...

Finding Annual PM Limit ‘Controlling,’ EPA Declines To Tighten Daily Limit

EPA’s decision to retain its daily limit for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) confirms a split with health advocates and science advisors who argued that a tighter short-term limit could more effectively reduce harmful air pollution spikes from wildfires and other events, as the agency finds an annual limit “controlling.” In its Feb. 7 final rule tightening national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for PM2.5, EPA revises the annual standard from 12 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) to 9 ug/m3, but...


EPA Tightens PM2.5 Health NAAQS, But Claims Limited Industry Impacts

EPA has released its final rule tightening fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standards, as expected adopting a tougher annual limit that the agency says will not pose a significant compliance burden for states and industry, but declining to tighten a daily limit aimed at addressing short-term spikes as environmentalists and its advisors had sought. The final rule unveiled Feb. 7, sets the “primary,” or health-based national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for PM2.5, at 9 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3), tougher...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Sign up for 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.