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 requires electronic reporting for RICE generators

EPA is finalizing mandatory electronic compliance reporting for gasoline and diesel-powered generators, or reciprocating internal combustion engines (RICE), to “provide for simplified reporting by sources and enhance availability of data” to EPA and the public, the agency says. In a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication Aug. 30, EPA finalizes the reporting requirements that will apply to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) both gasoline-powered spark ignition (SI) engines and...

White House Touts EPA’s Support For Novel Trading Plan In Permit Push

The White House is touting EPA’s recently proposed rule conditionally endorsing the Phoenix region’s plan to attain federal air quality standards using a novel mobile source credit trading program, saying the measure is part of a broader suite of actions the Biden administration is taking to ease permitting for various projects. EPA’s rule “will allow the county, which is now a center of semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., to continue to build semiconductor [fabrication plants] essential to our nation’s future...

States Petition EPA To List Four PFAS As Hazardous Air Pollutants

Three states are petitioning EPA to list four PFAS as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) under section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), a request that if granted would open the door to regulating the releases under the agency’s air toxics rules and, the petitioners say, prevent the chemicals from being shifted from one medium to another. North Carolina, New Jersey and New Mexico filed an Aug. 29 petition , asking EPA to list perflurooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid...

CARB Defends Call For Discovery In Challenge To GHG Disclosure Laws

California air board attorneys are defending their call for discovery in response to industry’s motion for summary judgment in its constitutional challenge to the state’s two laws requiring large companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change financial risks. “Plaintiffs’ opposition to Defendants’ motion to deny or defer summary judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d) ignores two crucial facts: (1) Defendants seek discovery only on topics that Plaintiffs put in issue, and (2) Defendants seek that...

EPA Defends Rules’ ‘Integrity’ As Goffman Faces OIG’s ‘Conflict’ Charges

EPA is defending the integrity of its rulemaking process against accusations from its Office of Inspector General (OIG) that air chief Joe Goffman failed to disclose potential financial conflicts of interest and to recuse himself from rulemakings that affected entities in which he holds stock, including a major rule for ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilizers. “EPA is confident in the integrity of agency rulemakings and actions, and remains committed to the highest level of scientific integrity and transparency,” an agency spokesperson...

Capito Vows Senate Inquiry Into OIG’s Claims On Goffman’s ‘Conflicts’

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), ranking member of the Senate environment committee, is vowing to investigate EPA’s Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) claims that air chief Joe Goffman failed to properly address financial conflicts of interest, saying the accusations show “a concerning pattern of failure” to follow ethics rules. “Today’s report raises serious questions and concerns regarding how Assistant Administrator Goffman and his Office ensure transparency, impartiality, and effectively manage potential conflicts of interest in rulemakings and other official actions,”...

EPA Seeks Input For Possible Rule On ‘Advanced’ Methane Monitoring

EPA is seeking feedback for a possible rulemaking that could expand use of “advanced and emerging” methane monitoring technologies in its greenhouse gas reporting program (GHGRP) for the oil and gas sector after the agency’s recently issued updates to the program only incorporated such technologies in a relatively limited way. EPA is also suggesting that any technology updates could also apply to methane reporting requirements for the landfill sector, according to a Federal Register notice slated to be published...

Refiners Say RFS Suit Not ‘Suitable Vehicle’ For High Court Venue Review

Small refiners are urging the Supreme Court to reject EPA’s bid for review of broad Clean Air Act venue questions in litigation over agency disapprovals of renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance waivers, saying that following a lower court’s ruling against EPA on the disapprovals, the case is not a “suitable vehicle” for the justices’ consideration. And in their Aug. 27 response brief , the refiners also push back on EPA efforts to have the court address the venue question in...

Critics Renew Push For High Court To Stay Power Plant GHG Standards

Republican-led states and the power sector pushing for the Supreme Court to stay EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards are asserting EPA “concedes” it cannot project future technology developments when setting standards, and that the rule is thus unlawful since it is not based on “currently” viable control technologies. “After defending a forward-looking approach in the final rule, EPA now concedes that a technology has not ‘been adequately demonstrated’ if it cannot ‘ currently be demonstrated.’ That concession resolves...

States, Oil & Gas Groups Press Supreme Court To Stay Methane Rule

Republican-led states and industry groups are pressing the Supreme Court to stay EPA’s oil and gas methane standards pending court review on the rule’s merits, arguing a key appellate court wrongly declined to pause the measure even though they believe the standards infringe on states’ latitude under the Clean Air Act (CAA). EPA’s rule is “an authoritarian national command from EPA to the states and operators . . . that the states regulate, that violates the cooperative federalism embedded by...

Environmentalists, EPA Alumni Defend Legality Of PM2.5 NAAQS Rule

Environmental and social justice groups and former EPA employees are defending the agency’s tougher limit for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), arguing in recent filings that the rule lawfully sought to account for adverse effects on poor and minority communities, conforms to longstanding scientific practice and is essential to protect visibility. In amicus briefs filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Commonwealth of Kentucky, et al., v. EPA, et al. , environmental justice...

Texas Sues EPA Over Controls On Cities Moved To ‘Serious’ Ozone Status

Texas air regulators and a coalition of business groups are suing EPA over the agency’s decision to retain certain pollution control requirements for cities classified in “moderate” nonattainment with federal ozone limits, even after the agency, at Texas’ request, downgraded Dallas, Houston and San Antonio’s air quality into “serious” nonattainment. In their suit filed Aug. 20 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, the State of Texas and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) challenge EPA’s June...

Environmentalists threaten new suit over Colorado ozone plan

EPA is facing imminent litigation in federal district court over the agency’s alleged failure to ensure Colorado has provided all necessary measures to meet federal ozone standards for the Denver region, as environmental groups reject EPA’s assertion that the state legitimately “withdrew” a contested plan, and press the agency for further action. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in a June 26 letter recently posted to EPA’s website gave the agency 60 days’ notice of its intent to sue to...

Industry, States Cite High Court Deference, Stay Order In GNP Opposition

Industry groups and mainly Republican states are looking to use recent Supreme Court administrative law precedents in their effort to vacate EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate air rule, citing in final appellate merits briefs both the high court’s elimination of agencies’ judicial deference and its ruling staying the GNP itself. In briefs filed Aug. 22 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in State of Utah, et al. v. EPA, et al. , industry...

EPA proposes federal SO2 plan for Texas

EPA is proposing a federal implementation plan (FIP) limiting sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions from the Martin Lake power plant in Texas, removing a “force majeure” exemption in the state’s own air quality plan but otherwise leaving emissions limits at levels consistent with those already agreed by the state and facility operator Luminant. In a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication Aug. 26, EPA proposes the Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) for attainment of SO2 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS)...

North Dakota, Industry Clash With EPA Over Visibility As Haze Plan Factor

North Dakota and industry groups are criticizing EPA’s proposed rejection of the state’s plan for further reducing regional haze, arguing the agency unlawfully dismissed visibility improvement as a “non-statutory factor,” as EPA disapproves a growing number of plans even as it tries to catch up with implementation of the program’s second phase. EPA July 10 proposed to disapprove North Dakota’s 2022 state implementation plan (SIP) covering the period 2018 to 2028. The plan is required under the Clean Air Act...

EPA Defends 111(d) Implementing Rule Governing State Air Standard Plans

EPA is defending its rule implementing a Clean Air Act (CAA) provision governing how states write plans to comply with climate and other air standards for existing stationary sources -- charging GOP-led states are seeking to pummel EPA’s role under the law to set national standards. “West Virginia’s objections are based on an alternative vision of the statute that departs from the plain text and would reduce EPA’s regulatory determinations to mere suggestions that states could freely ignore,” EPA writes...

EPA, Eastern States Defend ‘Severability’ Of GNP After High Court Stay

EPA and a group of mainly East Coast states are underscoring the continued viability of the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate ozone rule even after the Supreme Court stayed it over concerns that lower courts’ actions freezing implementation in many states rendered the program unworkable, as EPA maintains states’ obligations are “severable.” In final merits briefs submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Aug. 22 in State of Utah, et al. v. EPA, et...

Appeals Court Vacates EPA Rejection Of Texas ‘Contingency’ Air Measures

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has scrapped EPA’s disapproval of a Texas air quality plan that the agency faulted over its use of pre-existing “contingency measures” (CMs), remanding the issue to EPA to allow a rethink in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision limiting judicial deference on questions of statutory interpretation. In a brief Aug. 22 order in Texas v. EPA , the court says EPA’s “opposed motion for voluntary remand to the Environmental...

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