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.

States Fear ‘Cloud Of Uncertainty’ Blocking Future ‘Green Bank’ Lending

State-run “green banks” are raising alarm about the future of EPA’s $20 billion low-carbon project financing program, arguing that Trump officials’ attacks on the program have already stirred instability that will have a lasting effect even as a federal judge has expressed skepticism about the legality of the administration’s actions. “By casting a cloud of uncertainty over the availability and legitimacy of the $20 billion appropriation, EPA will render the entire funding stream toxic to risk-averse financial market participants,” says...

Loss Of ORD Likely To Strain EPA, State Air Regulators, Delay Rules

EPA’s plan to shutter its Office of Research and Development (ORD) will stymie the air office’s ability to comply with statutory obligations to write a variety of rules, placing additional burdens on state regulators faced with likely cuts to their federal funding and possibly delaying numerous EPA air rules that are required by law, sources say. The loss of ORD “would be devastating” to the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR), which has responsibility for air issues, says one former...

EPA Stance In Waiver Case Could Curb Environmentalists’ Future Standing

The Trump administration’s decision to continue opposing refiners’ standing to challenge EPA’s years-old preemption waiver for California’s auto rules is seen as officials playing the “long game” that could boost the administration’s expected claims that environmentalists lack standing to sue over pending waiver revocations. The administration’s recent brief in Supreme Court litigation over the issue “is remarkable because it is a rare instance in which the Trump administration is willing to play the long game rather than succumb to the...

EPA Rule Backers Preview Clash Over High Court Cases In GHG Risk Fight

Supporters of EPA’s greenhouse gas regulatory authority are disputing Trump administration claims that several Supreme Court rulings over the past 15 years justify re-examining the agency’s GHG endangerment finding that triggers a requirement to regulate such emissions, underscoring the upcoming clash over the import of those court decisions. EPA claimed in a March 12 announcement that the 2009 finding merits “fresh scrutiny” in part due to four high court rulings that were issued after the 2007 decision in Massachusetts v....

ORD Elimination Threatens Significant Policy Disruptions, Science Impacts

EPA’s planned elimination of its Office of Research and Development (ORD) will open the door to use of industry-backed research and impact critical work across the media offices, including particulate matter (PM) standards, Superfund cleanups, emergency response, Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rules and drinking water limits, former officials and other experts say. “With no ORD, then you really have the door open to biasing what science will be considered in setting a regulation in order to achieve the kind...

EPA Reviews Of Air Toxics Rules Will Revive Key Legal, Technical Fights

EPA’s sweeping reconsiderations of major air toxics rules, including the updated mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for power plants, will revive cross-cutting legal and technical issues at the heart of the air toxics program, with high stakes for industry pursuing eased burdens and environmentalists seeking to curb emissions, sources say. Administrator Lee Zeldin on March 12 announced a series of environmental policy rollbacks, including for a host of air toxics rules. “EPA is moving forward with the reconsideration of...

Judge Temporarily Blocks EPA Attempt To Scuttle ‘Green Bank’ Grants

A federal district court judge is temporarily blocking EPA’s attempt to terminate three multi-billion-dollar grants under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) program while the court rules on the broader legality of EPA’s push to scuttle the grants, finding that agency officials have not offered sufficient evidence of wrongdoing. Pending a decision on the case’s merits, EPA and Citibank “are enjoined from giving effect to” to March 11 termination letters that EPA sent to the three major grant recipients suing...

CBD sues EPA over Western oil & gas facility permits

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is filing suit over EPA’s failure to act on the group’s objections to Clean Air Act permits for three oil and gas processing and storage facilities in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, saying the permits fail to limit sufficient pollution as required by the air law. The litigation, however, comes as the Trump EPA has pledged to remove regulatory barriers to fossil fuel production, meaning any response by the agency is unlikely to align...

EPA Plan To ‘Eliminate’ Research & Development Office Faces Legal Doubts

EPA’s plan to “eliminate” the Office of Research and Development (ORD) is drawing stiff criticism from many Trump administration critics, who charge it would cripple the agency’s ability to craft rules according to the best available science as required by many environmental laws and may violate other statutory mandates. “It’s clear if you don’t want EPA to carry out its mission, this is the lever you pull,” a former top ORD official told Inside EPA in a March 18...

Fuels, Other Groups Ramp Up Calls To Scuttle California Waivers Via CRA

A broad array of industry groups representing the fuels, agriculture and freight sectors is pressing Congress to repeal EPA’s preemption waivers for California emissions programs using the Congressional Review Act (CRA), even as it remains murky if and when Republican lawmakers will attempt such an effort. The call in a March 17 letter to Hill leaders comes as critics of California’s mobile source programs are floating legislation to broadly block the state’s waiver authority. The lead Senate sponsor of that...

D.C. Circuit Reverses First LNG Vacatur Following Trump’s EJ Directives

The D.C. Circuit is reversing its first-time vacatur of a liquified natural gas (LNG) project approval and instead remanding the issue to federal regulators for additional environmental justice (EJ) study, even as it acknowledges that the Trump administration’s reversal of EJ directives could be “highly relevant” to how regulators proceed. The March 18 opinion in City of Port Isabel v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), et al. , comes in response to industry petitions for a three-judge panel of the...

Exxon Seeks To Overturn Landmark High Court Ruling On Citizen Standing

ExxonMobil Corp. is petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn its landmark 2000 ruling backing citizens’ ability to seek civil penalties in enforcement suits -- arguing citizens lack standing because penalties are paid to the U.S. Treasury rather than plaintiffs -- in litigation that could upend decades of caselaw and stifle citizen enforcement. In a petition for certiorari filed March 11, Exxon seeks to overturn a split ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Environment...

EAB Grants EPA Remand Of Wind Farm Permit, Halting Offshore Project

EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) has granted the agency a voluntary remand of its air permit for wind turbine development off the New Jersey coast, effectively halting the project in line with an executive order by President Donald Trump directing that agencies review wind power projects, which Trump has criticized. In a March 14 order , Environmental Appeals Judge Mary Kay Lynch grants EPA Region 2’s request for a voluntary remand of its Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Clean Air Act...

Judge Poised To Rule On Call To Release EPA’s ‘Green Bank’ Awards

Three groups that were awarded a total of $14 billion under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) program are fleshing out their legal claims for why the agency has improperly scuttled those grants, as a federal judge appears poised to narrowly grant their request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would restart some payments. Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who is considering three related challenges to the grant terminations, appeared sympathetic...

Zeldin Move To ‘End’ Good Neighbor Rule Spurs Interstate Ozone Dilemma

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s pledge that the agency will be “ending” the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) rule is posing serious questions about the lack of credible controls on ozone pollution crossing state lines, as “downwind” states face likely “nonattainment” with federal air standards because of emissions they cannot control. Among many environmental policy rollbacks announced March 12, EPA said it would be “ending” the “so-called ‘Good Neighbor Plan’ which the Biden-Harris Administration used to expand federal rules to more states...

Senate panel advances EPA nominees Fotouhi, Szabo

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) is advancing the nominations of David Fotouhi to be deputy administrator of EPA, and of Aaron Szabo to be head of the agency’s air office, a step that clears the way for their expected confirmation by the full Senate. The panel voted to approve the pair on party-line votes at a March 13 business meeting. “Both Mr. Fotouhi and Mr. Szabo are qualified and well-equipped to fulfill the roles that they have...

Observers See ‘High Risk’ Strategy In EPA’s Reopening Of GHG Finding

Experts say EPA’s decision to reopen its greenhouse gas endangerment finding faces numerous possible roadblocks -- including long-established climate science, difficult Supreme Court precedent, and Clean Air Act language that does not specify cost as a factor when determining if pollutants pose a threat to the public. Some observers, however, believe EPA is trying to tee up Supreme Court litigation that could revisit the high court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling that GHGs are pollutants under the statute, a...

Zeldin Pledges ‘Momentous’ Push To Review Dozens Of Biden-Era Rules

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is pledging to undertake a “momentous” deregulatory effort, formally announcing the agency will reconsider dozens of Biden-era rules and other policies, including core rules affecting power plants, vehicle emissions and many other major sectors. The agency in a March 12 press release describes the effort in superlative terms, stating that they collectively “represent the most momentous day in the history of the EPA.” “Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are...

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