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.

CARB Eases Truck Fleet Rule But Utilities Press For More Compliance Delays

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is easing requirements under its Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) truck regulation applying to state and local government fleets, but power and wastewater utilities are pressing for more compliance relief and credit for trucks powered by renewable natural gas, among other changes to ease their obligations. “Today’s approval of amendments to ACF -- a critical component in the state’s efforts to achieve emissions reductions for a healthier future for all residents -- keeps California advancing...

Biofuels Sector Seeks To Stall Imminent Argument In RFS Waivers Case

Biofuels industry groups are seeking to postpone imminent oral argument in long-running litigation over EPA’s approach to granting small refinery waivers from renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending mandates, after recent moves by the agency granting dozens of waivers and establishing a new policy on how to account for their effects. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is currently slated to hold Sept. 30 oral argument in Clean Fuels Alliance America v. EPA , a...

Industry Expects CARB To Issue Interim Guidance For E15 Sales In State

Ethanol industry representatives expect the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to release interim guidance for fuel suppliers to sell gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol (E15) if Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signs a pending bill allowing such blends to be used in the state for the first time, while the board works on longer-term regulations. “We’d expect CARB to issue some temporary/interim guidance explaining how fuel marketers/retailers can legally offer E15 while CARB is working on a formal rulemaking,” says one...

L.A. Air District, Ports Agree To Pursue Modified MOU To Reduce Pollution

Los Angeles air district officials and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are agreeing to pursue a modified memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cut pollution at the facilities including by bolstering zero-emissions charging infrastructure, and the regulators are in turn halting development of an indirect source rule (ISR) on the sector. The planned MOU, called an “updated draft Cooperative Agreement” by the parties, will focus on “the zero-emissions infrastructure plan development, which is the key to facilitating future...

GOP AGs Offer Path To Scrap Mass. But Doubt Need Given GHG Risk Repeal

Over two dozen GOP attorneys general are offering a path for the Supreme Court to scrap its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling ratifying EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, though they claim this is not necessary for EPA’s proposed GHG finding repeal because the plan is consistent with the “best read” of the Clean Air Act CAA). “[L]egal developments since Massachusetts have shown that GHGs like carbon dioxide are not ‘air pollutants’ under [Clean Air Act section] 302(g),” in...

EPA Cites 3rd Circuit Ruling To Justify End Of NSR ‘Reactivation Policy’

EPA is citing a 2023 appellate ruling to justify its decision ending its years-old source “reactivation” policy that determined whether an idled facility needs a fresh new source review (NSR) permit, under its new policy that makes acquisition of a new permit unnecessary unless a reactivated source would emit more than it did before being idled. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Sept. 15 announced the end of the prior reactivation policy, alongside other measures aimed at easing air permitting for industry...

EPA Formally Reinstates NSR Policy Barring ‘Second Guessing’ Of States

EPA has formally reinstated its policy from the first Trump administration barring the agency from “second guessing” states’ decisions on new source review (NSR) permitting, after the Biden EPA scrapped a 2017 memo from then-Administrator Scott Pruitt that first prohibited such “second-guessing.” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin signed the Sept. 15 memo reinstating the policy. It came the same day that he announced it at a White House event, alongside other measures aimed at easing air permitting for industry as part...

DOJ Asks Court To Dismiss California’s Suit Over CRA Waiver Repeals

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a court to dismiss a suit by a California-led state coalition that claims EPA and other federal officials wrongly used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to rescind waivers for several California vehicle pollution programs, asserting the suit is precluded in part because of a bar on judicial review in the CRA statute. “This lawsuit asks this Court to invalidate three federal statutes that received majority votes in both Houses of Congress, and that...

EPA GHG Reporting Rollback Could Drive Multiple State, Other Programs

EPA’s proposal to virtually eliminate its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) is sparking warnings that such a step would create new pressures for multiple differing GHG reporting requirements, including at the state level, alongside new difficulties in asserting environmental performance in domestic or foreign markets. Those fears supplement prior concerns that ending EPA’s program would complicate industry’s ability to claim tax credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and clean hydrogen production. EPA’s proposal is also sparking claims by the...

Democratic States Warn EPA’s GHG Risk Plan Flouts High Court Precedent

A coalition of Democratic cities and states led by Massachusetts and California is blasting EPA’s proposed recission of its greenhouse gas endangerment finding, arguing EPA’s justification is foreclosed by the Supreme Court, disregards “overwhelming” science and is “misguided” in seeking input on ways to ensure continued preemption of state vehicle GHG rules. The 225-page arguments are spelled out in Sept. 22 comments filed in response to EPA’s proposal to withdraw its 2009 endangerment finding that forms the basis for the...

State Coalition Charges EPA Lacks Authority To Scrap Vehicle GHG Limits

A California-led coalition of Democratic states and cities is charging that EPA’s plan to scrap all vehicle greenhouse standards ignores states’ reliance interests, exceeds limited agency authority to “revise” the standards, and cannot rely on the agency’s plan to scuttle its GHG risk finding that would be “ineffective” in undoing the basis for the standards. In Sept. 22 comments , the coalition cites $1.2 trillion in avoided climate harms under the current federal GHG program over the next three decades,...

Appeals Court Hands Texas Another Defeat On Interstate Air Planning

A divided 5th Circuit panel has handed Texas another defeat on interstate air issues, upholding EPA’s years-old disapproval of a state ozone plan while leaving in place a federal program and again defending EPA’s broad discretion on technical matters such as air standards attainment. In their Sept. 22 ruling in State of Texas v. EPA , a split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upholds EPA’s rejection of a state implementation plan (SIP) submitted...

Automakers Seek ‘Backstop’ Vehicle GHG Standards As Regulatory Hedge

The main auto sector trade group is calling on the EPA to adopt revised vehicle greenhouse gas standards as an “alternative or backstop” to the agency’s proposal to scrap its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG limits, calling such a plan “critical if motor vehicle GHG standards are retained or reinstated in some way.” The pitch in Sept. 22 comments from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation builds on the sector’s recent push for interim relief from the standards...

Environmentalists Mobilize To Fight AI Data Center’s Environmental Risks

Environmental groups are mobilizing to oppose technology companies’ plans, often with support of state and local officials, to build massive data centers over multiple concerns, including their huge energy and water demands, potential high costs for other power consumers, and in some cases attempts to evade federal air permitting requirements. Already, they have successfully pressured xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) company, to remove 20 gas turbines from one facility and seek air permits for the remaining turbines’ emissions, while...

Critics Fight EPA Bid To Reject Haze Plan Over Use Of Coal Plant Closures

States and environmentalists are fighting EPA’s proposed rejection of a Colorado plan to curb regional haze in a fight over whether states can rely on planned closures of coal-fired power plants to meet program objectives, with critics warning that the Trump administration has created unlawful new hurdles to reducing haze-forming air emissions. In comments submitted to the agency ahead of a Sept. 15 comment deadline, states and environmental groups criticize EPA’s July 16 proposed partial disapproval that employed novel arguments...

Comments Show High Stakes Legal Fight Over EPA’s GHG Finding Repeal

Emerging public comments are underscoring the agency’s high stakes gamble -- pinned largely to threshold Clean Air Act (CAA) legal arguments but also claiming science and technology rationales -- in its bid to scrap its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG rules. It is a “high-risk, high-reward endeavor” for the Trump EPA’s deregulatory push, said Boyden Gray attorney Michael Buschbacher, alluding during remarks at a Sept. 17 American Enterprise Institute forum to the finding’s role in justifying GHG...

Senate rejects Whitehouse bid to debate power plant CRA resolution

The Senate has rejected on procedural grounds a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R), ranking Democrat on the environment committee, that would have rescinded EPA’s rule increase Indiana’s power plant emissions limits, the first of several such resolutions offered by Whitehouse. Senators Sept. 16 voted 51-47 rejecting a motion to proceed to a vote on the resolution, S.J. 60. The measure would have disapproved a relatively obscure EPA rule approving an increase in Indiana’s interstate ozone...

Facing Suit, EPA Plans To Scrap Compliance Delay For Coke Ovens Rule

EPA says it will withdraw its two-year compliance extension for coke oven air toxics limits, arguing the delay is unnecessary as it reconsiders the Biden-era limits, sidestepping broader legal arguments about “good cause” for the delay and contradicting industry’s claims that it faces “peril” absent the extension. In a Sept. 18 filing in GASP, et al. v. EPA , a case brought by environmental groups against the interim final rule (IFR) that established the delay, EPA says it does not...

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