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 Proposes To Repeal Bush-Era 'Grandfathering' NSR Rule For Particles

EPA is proposing to repeal a Bush-era "grandfathering" rule allowing certain Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) permits to use large particulate matter (PM10) as a "surrogate" for fine particles (PM2.5) -- a practice critics say leads to weaker pollution controls -- in the midst of an industry lawsuit over the Obama EPA's earlier stay of the rule. The Feb. 4 proposed repeal of the grandfathering policy would also end early the PM10 surrogacy policy for states with EPA-approved...

EPA Official Says Air Mitigation Approach Could Aid Water Enforcement

Bolstered by a key court victory last year, EPA is touting its efforts to win mitigation of past violations in Clean Air Act enforcement cases and a senior EPA enforcement official says the same approach could succeed under other environmental statutes as well, including the Clean Water Act. If successful, an informed source says the effort could help EPA win environmental mitigation instead of penalties that are sent to the Treasury, where they do not benefit the environment. Mitigation may...

Unions, Economist Warn Of Job Losses From Strict EPA Cement Proposal

A major trade union federation and a Texas economist are backing industry attempts to soften the stringency of EPA's proposed new air toxics rule for the Portland cement sector, warning that the rule will cause American job losses during an ongoing economic downturn and echoing industry's claims that the emission limits are impossible to achieve. The AFL-CIO is telling EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that the agency's proposed maximum achievable control technology (MACT) to reduce mercury and other air toxics at...

Lead NAAQS Lawsuit Endgame

EPA and industry have filed their final briefs in an ongoing industry lawsuit challenging the agency's recently revised lead national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), in which industry is attacking the science EPA used to tighten the federal lead air standard. Industry in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case, Coalition of Battery Recyclers Association, et al. v. EPA , is asking the court to vacate the Bush EPA’s November 2008 lead NAAQS that tightened...

EPA Region VIII Using Enforcement To Drive GHG Limits At Natural Gas Sites

EPA Region VIII is using enforcement settlements to require natural gas drilling sites to install new control technologies to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas (GHG) methane, spurring environmentalists to call on EPA to mandate the controls in its pending review of federal permitting requirements for the sector. "What's most interesting in the latest settlement is that EPA clearly sees the intersection between enforcement and policy efforts" by using the decrees to drive GHG limits, one environmentalist says. Region VIII...

EPA Readies Proposal Mandating MACT 'Hammer' After Air Rule Vacaturs

EPA has won White House approval to propose a key new regulatory backstop declaring that states must issue case-by-case maximum achievable control technology (MACT) limits at facilities in the event a federal court vacates an EPA sector-based MACT for limiting air toxics, a rule that could bolster EPA's stance on when the so-called MACT "hammer" applies. The pending rule, which cleared White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) review without change Feb. 1, aims to avoid confusion on when...

EPA Ozone Review Revives Debate Over Legal Scope Of Science Advisers

The Obama EPA's proposed tightening of the Bush administration's national ozone air standard is sparking renewed debate over the legal scope of recommendations by EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), and whether EPA is required under the Clean Air Act to issue standards within CASAC's suggested range. The debate is central to the development of EPA's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone and other pollutants, and raises the specter of new litigation that could restrict CASAC's influence...

EPA Faces Likely Hurdles In Bid To Use NSPS Authority For GHG Trading

EPA is seeking $7.5 million in its fiscal year 2011 budget to use existing Clean Air Act authority to issue new source performance standards (NSPS) for greenhouse gases (GHG) that may include a cap-and-trade system, a move that could spark a fight with some lawmakers who staunchly oppose EPA using its air law trading authority for GHGs. The agency in its FY11 budget justification to Congress seeks $43.5 million in new funding for a slew of GHG rules, with $7.5...

EPA Advances Fire Air Policy

EPA has sent to the White House for review its long-pending revisions to its policy on protecting public health and visibility during managed fires, a move that will update the agency's approach to planned forest fires and which could include first-time guidelines on managing agricultural fires. The agency Feb. 4 sent to the White House Office of Management & Budget for review a notice intended to make final its air quality policy for wildland and prescribed fires. The document will...

First Air Permit With GHG Limits Leaves Key BACT Issues Unresolved

The first power plant permit with federally enforceable best available control technology (BACT) limits for greenhouse gases (GHGs) leaves unanswered key questions on applying BACT to GHGs, including whether facilities should switch to cleaner fuel and whether a broader scope of efficiency measures should be considered, sources say. These questions could limit the precedent that some observers say the permit sets, particularly because EPA's Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC) continues to wrangle over a slew of unresolved issues on...

Experts, Lawmakers Warn About Geoengineering

Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee’s energy and environment subcommittee, called geoengineering -- a term that describes alterations of the earth’s climate, including spraying aerosols into the atmosphere, to mitigate climate change -- a last ditch effort, according to a press release that followed his subcommittee’s Feb. 4 hearing on the controversial topic. “Without question, our first priority is to reduce the production of global greenhouse gas emissions,” Baird said. “However, as I said,...

Study May Revive Bid To List Children As Susceptible In CO NAAQS Review

A new study of Texas children shows a strong link between exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) from traffic fumes and school absences, which may revive calls for children to be added as a susceptible group in EPA's ongoing review of the CO air standard -- a move that the agency's science advisers once advocated but later dropped. The peer-reviewed study, "Does Pollution Increase School Absences?" appeared in the November issue of the Review of Economics & Statistics , jointly published...

Refiners, Truckers File Lawsuit Over California Low-Carbon Fuel Standard

The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA), American Trucking Association and other industry groups have filed suit over California's low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS), alleging it violates the U.S. Constitution's supremacy and commerce clauses by regulating interstate and foreign commerce. The petition , filed Feb. 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, is the third lawsuit against California's Air Resources Board (CARB) over its LCFS, with the first two having been filed by the ethanol industry...

Industry To Press EPA, Congress For Relief From California Diesel Rules

State construction and trucking industry groups plan to partner with national industry associations to press EPA and Congress for relief from the California air board's controversial diesel regulations governing construction equipment and trucks, possibly by asking EPA to relax air quality mandates and deadlines for California. Industry groups are also urging California Air Resources Board (CARB) officials to join them in their quest for federal relaxation of the state's air quality obligations, but the officials are seen as unlikely to...

Environmentalists Suggest Lawsuit Over 'Illegal' EPA Ozone Fee Guidance

Environmentalists are warning EPA that the agency will likely face a legal challenge over what they say is a "flatly illegal" guidance giving states significant flexibility in how they implement a Clean Air Act requirement to impose large fines on polluters in areas that remain significantly out of attainment with national ambient ozone standards. The warning comes as Texas regulators are preparing to implement one of the nation's first ozone fee programs in a manner activists fear will exempt most...

EPA Could Set Stricter BACT Than First-Time GHG Limits In Key Air Permit

EPA's top air official says that first-time greenhouse gas (GHG) limits in a natural gas plant's air permit bolster the agency's claim that the best available control technology (BACT) permitting process can apply to GHGs, but cautions that the agency could develop BACT requirements that exceed the standards the permit mandates. Regina McCarthy, head of EPA's Office of Air & Radiation, said Feb. 5 that the first-time enforceable GHG air permit issued by a California air district "does not necessarily...

EPA Expects To Move On BACT For GHGs Despite Lingering Disagreements

EPA officials say a just-issued report by its air advisers on greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting shows support for using the traditional best available control technology (BACT) process for GHGs, despite an impasse among the advisers on key issues they referred back to EPA, including how to assess fuel switching and efficiency in BACT reviews. Janet McCabe, principle deputy to EPA air chief Regina McCarthy, said Feb. 3 that a key finding of the climate change work group of EPA's Clean...

EPA Air Advisers Doubt Agreement On Novel BACT Approaches For GHGs

EPA's air advisers are expressing serious doubt that they will be able to reach agreement on any "out of the box" unconventional approaches to best available control technology (BACT) reviews for greenhouse gases (GHGs), after the advisers failed to reach broad consensus on how to apply conventional BACT reviews to address GHGs. The climate change workgroup of EPA's Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC) Feb. 2 and 3 met in Arlington, VA, to discuss its recent report to EPA that...

EPA Calls Vacatur Of Air Toxics Waiver Wrong But Resists Court Review

EPA says that a key appellate court erred in vacating a long-standing exemption to general air toxics rules during periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM), when emissions can spike significantly and are difficult to control, but is nevertheless urging the Supreme Court to decline an industry petition seeking to overturn the lower court ruling. "Because the practical significance of the question presented in the petition for certiorari is slight, and because EPA is taking appropriate steps to minimize any...

Litigating Lead Levels

Industry is pushing back against EPA’s claims that it filed a “scattershot” lawsuit challenging the Bush EPA’s lead air standard on the basis that it has no merit, saying the agency’s latest brief defending the standard fails to address industry’s key arguments challenging its legality. Industry filed a Feb. 3 reply brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejecting EPA’s arguments against the lawsuit. The brief rejects a number of claims the agency set...

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