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.

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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.

Small Refiners Resist RFS Volume Hike, Oil Sector Compact With Biofuels

Small refiners are pushing back against major oil companies and their biofuels sector allies who are urging the Trump EPA to increase biofuel blending volumes under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), saying that any increase would be bad policy and should be offset by compliance waivers for small facilities. “We urge you to send the multi-national oil and biofuels companies back to the drawing board to come up with a biofuels policy that does no harm. If biofuels volumes are...

Analysis finds 500 plants in 45 states could seek air toxics waivers

A new analysis from environmentalists finds that more than 500 facilities across 45 states could seek an exemption from toxic air pollution emission limits from EPA after Administrator Lee Zeldin last month opened a portal for facilities to seek such waivers. The April 7 analysis , by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and other health and environmental groups, shows “the extensive number of high-polluting facilities” that Zeldin “has invited to seek exemptions from national limits on hazardous air pollution.” The facilities...

Former EPA Official Braces For 'Quick And Dirty' Attack On GHG Finding

A former top EPA official and others are bracing for the possibility that the Trump EPA pursues a "quick and dirty" approach to scrapping its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and sector-specific GHG rules, even as observers are expecting such efforts would be doomed to fail in the courts. “The data is limited” on the administration’s process for revisiting numerous GHG and other rules, says former Biden EPA air chief Joe Goffman in an interview with Inside EPA ’s Climate Extra...

Tariffs Introduce Uncertainty As E15 Supporters Seek Summer Waiver

President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs on imports, and resulting retaliation by trading partners, are raising uncertainty over markets for corn ethanol and other biofuels, as ethanol supporters in Congress seek an emergency summer authorization for 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) that could help to absorb some surplus ethanol if exports fall. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) led a bipartisan group of 17 senators in an April 3 letter asking Trump to allow EPA to issue an emergency waiver to...

Oil, Chemical Sectors Seek To Extend SOCMI Waivers To ‘All Sources'

Refiners and chemical manufacturers are seeking a two-year presidential waiver for “all sources” from compliance with the Biden EPA’s tougher rule limiting air toxics emissions from many large chemical plants, seeking to broadly extend EPA’s recent invitation for facilities to seek waivers while it reconsiders several significant Biden-era air rules. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) in a March 31 letter to EPA ask for a presidential waiver from compliance with the National...

Senate Parliamentarian Finds California Vehicle Waivers Exempt From CRA

The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that EPA’s preemption waivers for California’s vehicle emissions programs are not subject to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), according to Senate Democrats, delivering a fresh and possibly fatal blow to Republicans’ effort to rescind the waivers with a simple majority vote. “I am pleased that the Senate parliamentarian upheld decades of precedent and confirmed that California’s Clean Air Act waivers are not subject to the Congressional Review Act,” said Senate Environment & Public Works Committee...

Montana coal plant requests MATS waiver

A Montana coal-fired power plant is seeking a presidential waiver from EPA’s Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), the first public indication that facilities are seeking such waivers under a controversial Trump administration initiative to allow facilities to seek exemptions from a variety of air toxics rules. But the request is highlighting competing views on the initiative, with GOP lawmakers supporting the request citing costs and grid reliability concerns while environmentalists are warning the waiver will result in unnecessary...

Some Fuels Groups Agree On RFS Volumes, Sparing Trump EPA From Battle

Major oil companies and biofuels organizations have reached agreement on requested levels of biofuel blending under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) for 2026 and 2027, as liquid fuels groups seek to forge a united front on the divisive issue, though differences of view and unresolved areas remain, sources say. The novel alliance of major refiners and biofuels groups has been in evidence for some time, as liquid fuels producers looked to counter Biden administration support for electric vehicles. Under the...

AI Infrastructure Emerges As Key Focus For Federal Environment Policy

Accelerating the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure is emerging as a key focus for federal environmental policy, including Congress, the Trump EPA and industry stakeholders -- a focus which implicates a wide array of EPA programs, including energy and air rules, permitting, environmental cleanups and water reuse. Making the United States “the artificial intelligence capital of the world” is among Administrator Lee Zeldin’s five “pillars” guiding his tenure at the agency. An EPA spokesperson tells Inside EPA that many...

Amid Senate Doubts, House GOP Edges Toward CRA Auto-Waiver Attack

House Republicans are taking several steps to advance repeals of the Biden EPA’s preemption waivers for three California vehicle emissions programs under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), even as questions persist about whether the effort is procedurally viable in the Senate. The House lawmakers on April 2 formally introduced CRA resolutions seeking to repeal EPA’s waivers for California’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) program, including its 2035 new vehicle zero emissions mandate; the state’s Advanced Clean Trucks program; and...

D.C. Circuit stays sterilizers case but rejects EPA remand request

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has granted EPA’s request to pause litigation over the agency’s Biden-era rule tightening ethylene oxide (EtO) limits for commercial sterilizers, scrapping oral argument that had been set for this month, but denied the agency’s request for voluntary remand of the rule. In an April 1 order , a panel of Judges Florence Pan and Bradley Garcia, both Biden appointees, and Justin Walker, a Trump appointee, without explanation grant EPA’s...

Health Groups Warn Air Toxics CRA Resolution Could Backfire On Industry

Public health and environmental groups are urging senators to reject a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to disapprove the Biden EPA’s 2024 rule tightening a Trump-era rule allowing “major” air toxics sources to reclassify as more lightly regulated “area sources,” warning that the resolution could provoke “profound” regulatory uncertainty. The attempt to scrap the Biden rule “represents the worst attack on the Clean Air Act’s safeguards against hazardous air pollution in the history of the Clean Air Act,” according to...

Groups Urge Congress To Avoid ‘Pandora’s Box’ By Ending EPA Waivers

A coalition of environmental, labor and other allied groups is urging Capitol Hill leaders to reject using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to rescind several of the Biden EPA’s preemption waivers for California vehicle emissions rules, warning such a move could open the door to a variety of unintended consequences. “Ultimately, the ramifications of using the CRA in these specific instances could extend far beyond just the waivers themselves and open a ‘Pandora’s box’ that will lay the groundwork for...

Legal Expert Sees ‘Close’ High Court Result In Air Act Venue Suits

One legal commentator is expecting “close” votes among Supreme Court justices in recently argued cases testing the bounds of the Clean Air Act’s venue provision, with differing results in the cases possible and Justice Amy Coney Barrett a possible swing vote. Speaking on a March 27 webinar hosted by the Federalist Society, attorney James Conde, a partner at the Boyden Gray law firm, said he expects a tight result in the litigation, EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining and Oklahoma...

EPA weighs ‘need’ for brick sector air toxics rule

EPA is launching a review of its air toxics regulation for brick and clay products manufacturing under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, in order to examine the “continued need” for the regulation that is established under the Clean Air Act Section 112 National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) program. “Pursuant to section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the review of the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Brick and...

Researchers Craft Novel Method For Assessing Cumulative Health Risks

Johns Hopkins researchers have established a first-of-its-kind, peer-reviewed method to measure the cumulative health risks from air pollution emitted by industrial facilities, a method that could provide a means for states and others to assess such risk in the face of the Biden EPA’s struggle to craft such a method and opposition from the Trump administration to their use. The findings were accepted March 24 for publication in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal. The new approach considers the...

Question Of Criteria Pollutant Strategy Looms Over EPA Auto Rule Rewrite

The Trump EPA’s vow to reopen multi-pollutant standards for model year 2027 and later vehicles is sparking questions on how the effort will address criteria air pollutant requirements, given that officials’ public criticism has focused on electric vehicle (EV) “mandates” and the agency’s underlying authority to regulate greenhouse gases. “There are different ways to address this reconsideration issue, and they don’t all just involve [EVs],” one industry source says, noting that the rule by its nature addresses multiple pollutants and...

EPA stays implementation of steel air toxics rule

EPA is staying implementation of several aspects of its Biden-era air toxics rule for integrated iron and steel manufacturing in order to avoid early April compliance deadlines for steel plants, while it reconsiders the rule with a view to a possible rollback. “EPA is staying the effectiveness of all provisions with April 3, 2025, compliance dates while the EPA addresses the reconsideration issues in a separate action,” the agency says in a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication March...

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