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 finds San Joaquin failed to meet air standard

EPA is finalizing its determination that California’s San Joaquin Valley failed to attain the 1997 8-hour ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) by a June 15, 2024 date for areas in extreme nonattainment, a move that requires local officials to implement contingency measures and a stationary source fee program. “This determination is based on quality-assured and certified ambient air quality monitoring data from 2021 through 2023,” EPA says in a Sept. 25 Federal Register notice . “As a...

Judge Seeks Post-Trial Briefs Before Ruling On Parent Firm’s NSR Liability

A federal judge in Michigan has ordered lawyers for parties in a major new source review (NSR) case to submit post-trial briefs before he rules on key issues, including whether utility DTE is liable for the conduct of its subsidiary EES Coke, which the court already found to have violated NSR requirements, as well as the size of any penalty. In a Sept. 29 order, Judge Gershwin Drain of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan directed...

Proposed Rule

Proposed Rule Summary

Fact Sheet


Judges Grapple With Biofuels Groups’ Suit Over ‘Retroactive’ RFS Waivers

D.C. Circuit judges are grappling with whether a challenge by biofuels groups over a 2020 renewable fuel standard (RFS) rule is moot, as the producers seek to force EPA to compensate for blending volumes lost to refinery waivers for past years, but the agency claims their case cannot proceed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held Sept. 30 arguments in the case, Clean Fuels Alliance America v. EPA , despite a last-minute bid by biofuels...

EPA Objects To CARB Rulemaking To Reinstate Older Vehicle Emission Limits

EPA is objecting to the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) emergency rulemaking to reinstate vehicle criteria emissions limits that had been superseded by the state’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) and “omnibus” truck nitrogen oxides (NOx) rules after Congress scuttled preemption waivers for those measures. In a Sept. 27 letter to CARB Executive Officer Steve Cliff, EPA air chief Aaron Szabo warned that any effort by CARB to reinstate its prior rules is unlawful unless the state has a...

EPA Floats HFC End-Use Flexibilities, Aligning With Near-Term Industry Asks

EPA is proposing to provide relief to food retailers, semiconductor manufacturers and others that are required to replace climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons with safer alternatives, issuing a plan that delays compliance deadlines and raises regulatory thresholds but stops short of adopting some of the longer-term exemptions industry sought. EPA Sept. 30 issued a proposal that seeks to extend a host of compliance deadlines, allowing companies in subsectors including residential air conditioning, retail food refrigeration, cold storage warehouses, and semiconductor manufacturing to use...

EEI Warns EPA About Adverse Effects Of Reversing GHG Risk Finding

Investor-owned utilities are cautioning EPA about the potential fallout from removing the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and linked vehicle emissions standards -- arguing federal GHG standards play an important role in displacing federal common law suits and providing the regulatory certainty required to build new gas plants. The power sector is not regulated directly by EPA’s proposed rule, which seeks to rescind the agency’s threshold risk finding and repeal vehicle GHG standards. EPA is separately promulgating a rule that would...

EPA Eyes Major Overhaul Of Regional Haze Rules To Ease State Burdens

EPA is weighing major changes to its regional haze program that could extend its 2064 target to restore visibility, establish a “safe harbor” to enable states to avoid further emissions controls on industrial sources, and create a status of “preservation” that requires no further action by states that cannot cut haze further by lowering manmade emissions. In its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) signed by Administrator Lee Zeldin Sept. 29, EPA explores future scenarios to streamline the regional haze...

Court Eyes Next Steps In Fight Over EPA’s 2022 California Emissions Waiver

A federal appellate court is asking EPA and other parties to propose next steps in a long-pending suit over a 2022 EPA preemption waiver for certain California vehicle greenhouse gas standards, after the Supreme Court’s June rejection of the appellate court’s prior conclusion that liquid fuels groups lacked standing to challenge the waiver. The request by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a Sept. 29 order in State of Ohio et al v. EPA...

Truck Makers Urge ‘Major Questions’ Attack On Some Vehicle GHG Limits

Truck and engine makers are pressing EPA to rely on the major questions doctrine, rather than scuttling its underlying greenhouse gas endangerment finding, to undo “Phase 3” truck greenhouse gas standards, citing fears that a legal strategy of relying on the GHG finding gambit is too risky to provide needed regulatory relief. The suggestion in Sept. 22 formal comments highlights broader industry fears in both the truck and auto sectors that EPA’s push to rollback vehicle GHG limits in tandem...

Eyeing Coal Boost, EPA Seeks To Ease Haze Rules, Power Plant ELGs

EPA is floating plans to scale back its regional haze program governing air quality in Class I areas such as national parks and delay effluent limitation compliance deadlines for coal-fired power plants, highlighting Trump administration efforts to bolster the coal sector. Together with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Undersecretary Wells Griffith, Administrator Lee Zeldin Sept. 29 signed the two regulatory plans at a White House National Energy Dominance Council event aimed at “advancing America’s beautiful clean coal.” “We can...

CARB Warns EPA’s Partial Disapproval Of Truck Smog Check Rule Is Illegal

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is charging that EPA’s proposed partial disapproval of the state’s heavy-duty inspection and maintenance (HD/IM) program to reduce conventional emissions violates the Clean Air Act and should be rejected in favor of full approval, including its application to out-of-state and cross-border trucks. “Finalizing the partial disapproval as proposed would violate the Clean Air Act. Contrary to U.S. EPA’s proposed partial disapproval, CARB has provided necessary assurances that no provision of state or federal law...

Former Trump Official Seeks ‘Presumptive’ State Air Plan, Permit Approval

Clint Woods, a former Trump EPA air official who is now Indiana’s environment commissioner, is calling for EPA and Congress to pursue “presumptive” approval of state air plans and permits if the agency takes too long to act, one idea among many that Woods is floating as the administration and Republicans seek to ease Clean Air Act compliance. In written testimony submitted to the House Energy & Commerce Committee environment subcommittee at a hearing Sept. 16, Woods broadly supported draft...

Advance Notice Of Proposed Rulemaking

Fact Sheet


Sen. Markey Warns EPA’s NSR ‘Construction’ Guidance Likely Unlawful

Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is questioning EPA over its recently changed guidance that excludes some industry activities from the definition of “construction” that would otherwise trigger new source review (NSR) air permitting, challenging Administrator Lee Zeldin to justify the legal rationale for the move, which Markey warns is likely unlawful. “Your recent reinterpretation of the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review (NSR) permitting requirements will translate to direct harm to human health here in the United States. By allowing pre-construction...

Legal Risks Seen Growing As EPA Eyes Quick Repeal Of GHG Risk Finding

EPA’s rapid schedule for finalizing its greenhouse gas endangerment finding rescission could exacerbate the effort’s legal vulnerability, observers say, potentially further imperiling the sweeping move to deregulate GHGs that sources have already characterized as a high-risk venture. “I think some errors due to the schedule are inevitable,” a former EPA official tells Climate Extra . “The issue is whether they will be fatal or not. We can’t know that till we see the final product.” Questions about the impact of...

EPA Urges Court To Preserve Oil And Gas Methane Compliance Delay

EPA is resisting environmentalists’ call for a court to immediately vacate the agency’s interim final rule delaying compliance requirements for oil and gas sector methane and other emissions, claiming it “lawfully invoked” a good-cause public comment exemption and that the groups have failed to justify their “extraordinary request.” EPA’s stance laid out in a Sept. 25 opposition motion filed in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The...

EPA poised to release regional haze overhaul plan

EPA is poised to release its draft plan for revising its regional haze regulations, which is expected to suggest a thorough overhaul of the program that may delay or scrap deadlines for states to attain their haze reduction goals, and significantly ease compliance via an eventual revision to the regional haze rule (RHR). The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) completed pre-publication review of EPA’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) Sept. 25, clearing the way for signature...

EPA Defends Phosphogypsum Approval, Charging CBD Lacks Standing

EPA is seeking to dismiss environmentalists’ challenge to its Biden-era approval of a small-scale pilot project allowing a Florida company to use phosphogypsum (PG) in road construction, charging that the petitioner lacks standing and that the agency properly interpreted the Clean Air Act’s section 112(r) provisions when it approved the project. EPA filed a Sept. 12 response brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in the suit Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v. EPA, et al....

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