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.

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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.

Questions Swirl About Role Of IRA’s GHG Language In Endangerment Fight

EPA’s reported call to reverse its endangerment finding that supports greenhouse gas rules is prompting questions about whether Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions -- stating GHGs are Clean Air Act (CAA) “pollutants” and backing the goal of cutting them -- could provide some support for GHG regulations even if the finding is scuttled. However, some observers are suggesting that the IRA language could play a secondary role in an emerging battle on the issue , and early analysis is also...

Appellate Court Takes Broad View Of Standing As More Citizen Suits Loom

A federal appellate court has ruled to allow Northeast residents to pursue their Clean Air Act (CAA) citizen suit against a local busing company for violating state idling rules, in a decision that takes a broad view of alleged harms that may be traced to plaintiffs’ exposure to vehicle exhaust and boosts the case for standing as such suits look set to increase. In its unanimous Feb. 20 ruling in Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), Inc. v. Academy Express, LLC ,...

Split D.C. Circuit formally denies pause in EtO suit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has formally denied EPA’s request for abeyance in litigation over the Biden EPA’s rule tightening emissions limits for commercial sterilizers using ethylene oxide (EtO), after the court earlier appeared to ignore the agency’s motion and scheduled oral argument for April. In its March 4 order denying EPA abeyance, however, the court notes that the panel of Judges Florence Pan and Bradley Garcia, both Biden appointees, and Justin Walker, a...

D.C. Circuit Pauses Suits Challenging EPA Car, Truck Emissions Rules

The D.C. Circuit is granting industry requests to pause litigation over EPA’s multi-pollutant standards for model year 2027 and later passenger vehicles and the agency’s “phase 3” greenhouse gas standards for heavy-duty trucks, amid expectations that EPA will begin reconsidering and scaling back the measures. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a March 4 order holds in abeyance the multi-pollutant litigation -- Commonwealth of Kentucky, et al. v. EPA -- while directing parties...

Former EPA Science Advisers Weigh Reboot Of ‘Shadow’ NAAQS Reviews

Former members of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are weighing a reboot of their non-official review panel that they hope will assess Trump administration efforts to craft new air quality standards for ozone and possibly nitrogen oxides (NOx), much as a similar panel did for particulate matter in the president’s first term. But any potential parallel review might not be able to get off the ground soon because EPA is slow in conducting reviews for new national ambient...

Railroads, CARB Near Resolving Suit Challenging Shelved Locomotive Rule

Attorneys representing railroads and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are nearing a resolution of the industry’s lawsuit against the board’s regulation requiring rail companies to reduce pollution from in-use locomotives, in the wake of the board failing to receive a Clean Air Act waiver of federal preemption from EPA. Since the filing of a joint status report on Feb. 12, “the parties have met and conferred on several occasions to discuss how the matter should now proceed and remain...

EPA will delay E15 summer sales in South Dakota, Ohio

EPA will delay summertime sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) in South Dakota and Ohio until 2026, at the request of those states, even as it proceeds with such transactions in six other Midwestern states in line with a Biden-era rule allowing sales that would otherwise be barred by federal fuel regulations. “The agency intends to act expeditiously to delay implementation for South Dakota and Ohio until the spring of 2026. This will be the last year an extension...

State Air Officials Fear Serious Fallout From Planned EPA Budget Cuts

State air officials are warning of serious consequences if the White House proceeds with its plan to slash EPA’s budget by 65 percent, with adverse effects on their ability to perform Clean Air Act duties to protect the environment as well as their ability to efficiently provide services needed by industry, such as permit issuance. “From the standpoint of states, we need EPA to do their part of the work that our agencies do together assuring that we all have...

EPA Reopens Comment On Dozens Of Air Rule Data Collection Requests

EPA is reopening public comment on 28 information collection requests (ICRs) under the Clean Air Act, offering industry a chance to comment not only on the burdens of the ICRs themselves, but also potentially the rules they apply to, including some targets for deregulation eyed by the Trump administration. In notices published in the Federal Register Feb. 28, the same day the ICRs expired, EPA reopens comments on ICRs for numerous National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP)...

Denka, EPA Spar Over Witnesses As Novel Endangerment Trial Looms

Denka Performance Elastomer (DPE), the Louisiana-based synthetic rubber manufacturer, and EPA are sparring over the company’s plans to call two state officials to appear in the first trial in an “imminent and substantial endangerment” case over environmental justice (EJ) impacts, though the company is urging officials to nix the case. Judge Carl Barbier of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana set a Feb. 28 deadline for EPA to formally object to Denka’s plan to call Aurelia...

Critics Aim To Make GHG Risk Finding Fight An ‘Embarrassment’ For Trump

Environmentalists and their Capitol Hill allies are looking to maximize the political cost to the Trump EPA if it attempts to undo the agency’s landmark greenhouse gas endangerment finding, arguing such a move ignores climate damages the public is experiencing and pledging to make such a move an “embarrassment” for the White House. The quick political attacks add to pushback from major industry groups, which are amplifying prior warnings that scrapping the finding -- which forms the legal basis for...

CBD Sues Over Biden EPA Approval Of Phosphogypsum Road Application

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is suing EPA over its formal approval of a small-scale pilot project allowing a Florida company to use radioactive phosphogypsum in road construction given concerns that the project violates both the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). CBD filed a Feb. 19 petition for review to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, challenging EPA’s Biden-era final approval of Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC’s request for a small-scale road pilot...

LAO Advises California Lawmakers To Reject ‘Broad’ New CARB Fee Power

California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) is recommending that lawmakers reject Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) fiscal year 2025-26 budget proposal to give the California Air Resources Board (CARB) “broad” new authority to levy fees on regulated entities to recover the costs of carrying out its climate and air programs. “We do not believe that CARB has provided a compelling rationale for why it needs such a broad expansion in its authority to assess fees. Moreover, we find that the proposal would...

Zeldin’s Call To Scrap GHG Risk Finding Would Spur Complex Court Fight

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is reportedly urging the White House to scrap the agency’s long-standing greenhouse gas endangerment finding, the basis for its climate rules, opening the door to a drawn-out, complex court battle while also opening industry up to major common law legal risks. Zeldin’s recommendation, which was first reported by the Washington Post , would most immediately remove the legal basis for EPA’s GHG rules for vehicles, power plants, landfills and other major industrial sectors, though rules...

EPA Defends Biden EtO Sterilizers Rule In Face Of Industry, GOP Criticism

The Trump EPA is continuing the legal defense of the Biden-era rule tightening air toxics limits for ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilizers, fending off industry attacks on its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) evaluation of EtO’s risks and defending its right to tighten rules in response to revised risk assessments, despite industry and GOP opposition. EPA’s defense comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the agency’s motion to hold the litigation in abeyance. The...

EPA Weighs Appeal In Landmark eBay Case Testing Section 230 Immunity

The Trump EPA is weighing whether to continue pursuing a Biden-era appeal of a landmark ruling that held that a controversial telecom law’s liability shield protects eBay from agency enforcement over sales of products banned under federal toxics, air and pesticide laws. In a Feb. 21 filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) on behalf of EPA asked the court for more time to file an opening brief in United States v....

D.C. Circuit Pauses PM Limits Suit As EPA Seeks To Stay Denka EtO Case

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has granted EPA’s motion to stay litigation over the agency’s controversial tightened federal air standards for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) while the agency decides how to proceed, as the agency also seeks abeyance in a major chemical-sector air rule case involving ethylene oxide (EtO). In a Feb. 25 order , a panel of Judges Patricia Millett and J. Michelle Childs and Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg granted abeyance in Commonwealth...

EPA Backs Summer E15 Fuel For Midwest, But Will Weigh Delay Requests

EPA will implement a rule allowing eight Midwestern states to sell 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) this summer when it would otherwise be banned, but it is also weighing a request by Ohio and possibly other states to delay summer sales until next year, as Congress moves toward a possible nationwide authorization of the fuel. Administrator Lee Zeldin on Feb. 21 announced the agency would uphold the current April 28 implementation date for a Biden-era rule that would set E15...

Texas sues EPA over PM plan denial, SO2 nonattainment

Texas is suing EPA over a Biden-era disapproval of the state’s air quality plan for meeting federal particulate matter (PM) limits and its finding that counties in the state failed to meet sulfur dioxide (SO2) limits, in litigation that will challenge Biden EPA policy on waivers for periods of plant startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM). In one suit filed Feb. 20 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, the state challenges EPA’s Dec. 20 final rule that...

House Tees Up CRA Vote To Rescind EPA Rule For IRA’s Methane ‘Charge’

House Republicans are teeing up a floor vote on whether to quickly rescind EPA’s implementing regulation for the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) methane emissions fee for the oil and gas sector, even as GOP lawmakers are hoping to repeal the underlying statutory basis for the fee in subsequent budget “reconciliation” legislation. House lawmakers this week are also poised to vote on a second Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution targeting an Energy Department (DOE) efficiency rule for gas-fired, tankless water heaters...

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