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.

Hill Democrats Join Others In Backing EPA’s Waiver For State Auto Rules

Key Senate and House Democrats are defending EPA’s reinstated preemption wavier for California’s greenhouse gas and zero emission vehicle (ZEV) programs, deriding as “nonsensical” and “artificial” opponents’ legal claims that fuel economy law preempts state rules and that EPA’s decision violated other states’ sovereignty. The arguments surface in one of several amicus briefs supporting the agency filed by a Jan. 20 deadline in State of Ohio et al. v EPA et al ., pending in the U.S. Court of...

EPA Exclusion Of Rule ‘Text’ From 111(d) Plan Raises ‘Fair Notice’ Questions

EPA’s recent proposal to modify implementing rules for Clean Air Act section 111(d) excludes the actual regulatory text in the official Federal Register notice, raising questions about why the agency is increasingly excluding text and other details it previously routinely placed in the notices, such as whether the agency is offering “fair notice” to comment on the rule. One industry attorney following the issue tells Inside EPA that the Dec. 23 Federal Register notice includes only preamble...

D.C. Circuit Panel Wrestles With Legality Of RFS Compliance Extension

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is wrestling with refiners’ push to revise EPA’s February 2022 extension of their renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance deadlines, but they gave few signs during Jan. 19 oral arguments whether they will uphold the agency’s action or revise it as refiners are seeking. At argument in Wynnewood Refining Co., LLC, et al. v. EPA , Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, Circuit Judge Nina Pillard and Senior...

White House Launches Push To Craft Metrics For Valuing ‘Natural Capital’

The Biden White House is launching a major effort to measure the value of the nation’s natural resources in official economic statistics, an effort the administration says will better account for the benefits of limiting air and water pollution, improve economic metrics and prepare against vulnerabilities tied to a changing climate. “The quantity, condition, and value of nature . . . still remain a blind spot in the national economic accounts,” the White House said in its “ National Strategy...

EPA Highlights Need For Tougher ICE Standards In Upcoming Auto Rule

EPA officials are emphasizing that their upcoming multi-pollutant standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles starting in model year 2027 will continue to impose tougher greenhouse gas requirements on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles even amid a potentially transformative push toward electric vehicles (EVs). The statements come as industry and environmentalist representatives floated early positions on the structure and timing of EPA’s rule during a Jan. 18 panel discussion at SAE International’s annual Government/Industry Meeting. “We have been thinking a lot...

Aircraft Owners Say EPA Lacks Power To Issue Leaded-Fuel Risk Finding

A coalition of aircraft owners says EPA lacks legal authority to issue its proposed “endangerment finding” that would likely trigger a phaseout of leaded aviation fuel, even as Democratic state officials and environmentalists seek a fast phaseout, and other industry groups cautiously accept the finding but advocate a slower phaseout of the fuel. In Jan. 11 comments submitted to EPA ahead of a Jan. 17 deadline for public input, the Coalition for Sustainable Aviation (CSA) , a non-profit group “focused...

McCabe Says West Virginia Holding Will Not Slow Busy Rulemaking Agenda

EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe says the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in West Virginia v. EPA , curtailing the agency’s Clean Air Act authority under the “major questions” doctrine, will not be a “major barrier” to the air office’s packed regulatory agenda. She told a Jan. 18 Resources for the Future (RFF) event that the justices framed the doctrine -- which holds that Congress must speak clearly when granting agencies broad authority to issue policies that have significant political...

OIG Plans Dozens Of FY23 Inquiries With Focus On Infrastructure Spending

EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is announcing dozens of new planned investigations for fiscal year 2023, heightening its focus on projects overseeing the agency’s management of its resources and operations as it works to quickly spend billions of dollars that Congress provided in recent infrastructure and other laws. “Receiving this unprecedented amount of funding in such a short period of time introduces a significant challenge to the Agency’s ability to effectively manage its business operations, significantly adding to...

DOJ Opposes Exxon Bid For Review Of Landmark Citizen Enforcement Suit

The Justice Department (DOJ) is opposing ExxonMobil’s bid for rehearing of a landmark citizen suit case, arguing that a divided appeals court correctly found standing for plaintiffs in a key test of high court precedent on the issue, despite all judges on the court failing to frame the standing question in terms of ongoing violations, not past conduct. In its Jan. 17 amicus brief in Environment Texas Citizen Lobby (ETCL), et al. v. ExxonMobil Corp. , DOJ opposes Exxon’s...

Bay Area air district taps EPA EJ official as new chief

Philip Fine, who has served as a top environmental justice (EJ) official at EPA, is slated to begin work next month as the next executive officer of the San Francisco Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the regional agency responsible for overseeing air quality in the nine-county area. “I am honored to join such an innovative, leading-edge agency with the opportunity to build upon its impressive air quality and public health accomplishments,” Fine said in a statement last month announcing...

D.C. Circuit Slated To Hear Case Over Extended RFS Compliance Deadlines

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is poised to hear oral argument in refiners’ lawsuit targeting EPA’s extended timetable for complying with renewable fuel standard (RFS) mandates, a measure ostensibly designed to help refiners that has nonetheless resulted in unachievable, “dystopian” deadlines, they say. Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, Circuit Judge Nina Pillard and Senior Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph will hear arguments in the case, Wynnewood Refining Company, LLC, et al. v....

EPA’s CSAPR Faces Tough Road As Steel Sector, MISO Pile On Concerns

EPA’s planned Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) expansion, which the agency is slated to finalize in March, is facing serious pushback from the steel industry that would be newly subject to the interstate emissions program, as well a major grid operator that is warning of adverse reliability impacts due to tougher power plant limits. In a presentation recently added to the agency’s regulatory docket, the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) calls EPA’s proposed emissions limits for steel furnaces technically...

EPA, EIP Reach ‘Agreement’ To Update Landfill Emissions Estimates

EPA and the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) have reached an “agreement in principle” to resolve the group’s suit seeking to force a deadline for the agency to update decades-old methods for estimating key landfill emissions, after the agency never finalized a 2008 plan to strengthen the methods. Facing a looming Jan. 20 deadline to respond to the group’s suit, EIP, et al. v. Regan , the agency asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a Jan...

DOJ Rebuts Constitutional, ‘Major Questions’ Claims In Auto Waiver Suit

The Justice Department (DOJ) is detailing its pushback to state and industry petitioners challenging EPA’s reinstatement of a preemption waiver for California’s vehicle greenhouse gas standards, arguing the GOP-led states’ constitutional arguments are “invented,” and that the Trump EPA unlawfully erred in blocking the programs. In addition, DOJ’s Jan. 13 response brief -- in State of Ohio et al. v EPA, et al. in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- asserts that all...

Environmentalists sue EPA over California, Pennsylvania PM plans

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Center for Environmental Health are suing EPA to force the agency to take action to reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels in California and Pennsylvania, asking a federal district court to set deadlines for the agency to act on the states’ air quality plans and attainment of standards. In a lawsuit filed Jan. 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the groups say EPA failed to timely approve...

EPA Staff Revising Ozone Assessment, Opening Door To Tougher Limits

EPA staff is re-writing a draft policy assessment (PA) that is a key component of the agency’s reconsideration of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone, raising the possibility that EPA might opt to tighten the standards, and likely advancing the review faster as EPA seeks to avoid falling further behind schedule. In a Jan. 3 letter to the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), recently uploaded to the agency’s website, EPA Administrator Michael Regan says agency staff is...

Biodiesel Sector Unhappy Over Lack Of Growth In RFS ‘Set’ Volumes

The biodiesel industry is venting its frustration at EPA over what industry officials say is the agency’s “woeful” underestimate of current and future production capacity for the sector, which has led EPA to propose blending volumes under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) for 2023 through 2025 that are far lower than required, biodiesel advocates say. During a Jan. 10-11 public hearing on EPA’s proposed “set” rule, industry representatives urged officials to overhaul their calculations underpinning the rule in order to...

EPA Faces Rare IQA Suit Over Refusal To Loosen Chloroprene IRIS Value

A Louisiana facility is suing EPA after the agency rejected its years-long effort under the Information Quality Act (IQA) aimed at easing its risk value, and related air toxics limits, for the synthetic-rubber feedstock chemical chloroprene, a suit that may face a high bar as courts have long held the law is unenforceable. Denka Performance Elastomers (DPE) filed a Jan. 11 complaint against EPA in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, claiming that the agency’s denial...

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