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.

DOJ Opposes GOP States’ Supplemental Standing Claims In Auto Case

The Justice Department (DOJ) and a California-led state coalition are opposing a bid by GOP-led states to supplement their claims that they have standing to challenge EPA’s preemption waiver for California’s auto emissions rules, arguing the GOP states have failed to prove economic harm from the policy. Further, DOJ and the California coalition say the procedural window has closed for Republican states to supplement their arguments on the threshold issue of standing. The battle surfaces late in the briefing stage...

Detailed EPA FY24 Request Seeks New Staff, Funding To Tackle Climate

The Biden administration’s fiscal year 2024 budget request seeks several increases in EPA staffing and other resources to address climate change, as part of a broader effort to bolster core agency activities, according to the agency’s newly released detailed description of the proposal. The agency’s Congressional Justification for its FY24 plan comes as Republican control of the House means an uphill fight for the proposal calling for EPA to rebuild its core capacity for administering multiple programs, beyond a suite...

Exxon Renews Strict Standing Theory As 5th Circuit Weighs Key Citizen Suit

ExxonMobil is arguing for a strict theory of standing in Clean Air Act citizen enforcement suits that would require plaintiffs to prove causation by the oil company of all their alleged injuries in order to establish standing, in a test of Supreme Court precedent on the issue that could result in severe constraints on citizen suits. In a March 20 supplemental brief filed in its en banc appeal of Environment Texas Citizen Lobby, Inc. v. ExxonMobil Corp. , the company...

EPA Seeks Preliminary Injunction To Force Denka To Reduce Chloroprene

EPA is stepping up its novel efforts to force Denka Performance Elastomer LLC to reduce chloroprene emissions from its Louisiana plant using rarely used Clean Air Act section 303 emergency power, filing a preliminary injunction motion that seeks to require the company to immediately and significantly reduce its emissions of the “likely” carcinogen. The Justice Department (DOJ), on behalf of EPA, filed a March 20 motion in United States v. Denka, et al., that argues the injunction is justified...

EPA Fights Regional Suits On State Air Plan Denials In Bid To Protect CSAPR

Seeking to protect the legal basis of the newly expanded Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), EPA is fighting a growing number of suits in regional appeals courts targeting the agency’s rejection of many states’ interstate air plans, arguing the litigation belongs only in the District of Columbia Circuit, as more states sue to overturn the plan denials. The Feb. 13 EPA rule denying the “good neighbor” state implementation plans (SIPs) of 19 states outright, and a further two states in...

EPA Faces Late Pushback As California Truck Waiver Decision Nears

EPA is facing 11th-hour industry pushback over state emissions rules for heavy trucks, as the agency is poised to act on California requests for preemption waivers allowing it to enforce standards for criteria pollutants and greenhouse gases, amid signs that California officials are weighing steps to blunt at least some of the concerns. The flurry of activity comes as several sources expect EPA to issue the waivers as soon as the week of March 20, though the agency is remaining...

EPA Provides CSAPR Exemptions, Flexibility For Manufacturing Industries

EPA’s expanded Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) makes several concessions to manufacturing and industries newly regulated under the interstate air program, dropping some emissions limits outright and creating exemptions from others, but the rule otherwise keeps limits largely as proposed, and, in a departure from the proposal, also regulates incinerators. The rule unveiled March 15 imposes nitrogen-oxides (NOx) emissions rate limits starting in 2026 on nine industry sectors in 20 states but keeps the industries out of the broader CSAPR...

Attorney, States Seek EPA Clarification On EJ Requirements For CCS

A former EPA attorney is urging the agency and state regulators to more clearly outline the scope of environmental justice (EJ) analyses needed to issue permits for carbon storage projects, with EJ emerging as a central sticking point amid the Biden administration’s push to deploy the technology to reach climate goals. “I think everyone needs more guidance from EPA and from state regulators as to the scope of EJ analysis that has to be conducted and whether it needs to...

EPA Offers CSAPR Flexibility To Ease Reliability Concerns But Doubts Fears

EPA in its just-released rule expanding and tightening the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) interstate air emissions program is taking a series of steps to ease fears that power plant retirements spurred by the regulation could harm electric grid reliability -- even as EPA insists the emissions trading program does not threaten reliability. Among other things, EPA in the final rule delays some new nitrogen oxides (NOx) control requirements, commits to temporarily maintain a larger bank of NOx allowances to...

EPA Speeds Truck GHG Plan, Possibly Ahead Of Car Emissions Rule

EPA is scrambling to issue its proposed “phase 3” greenhouse gas standards for heavy trucks by the end of the month, as observers suggest the plan could be released before the agency’s separate multi-pollutant car and passenger truck standards. The phase 3 GHG rule, which the agency is seeking to finalize by the end of this year, is widely expected to include the most ambitious consideration of truck electrification to date as one route to enabling GHG emissions reductions after...

EPA Unveils Expanded Cross-State Air Rule Targeting New Industries, States

EPA has unveiled its expanded and strengthened Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) to curb interstate ozone, imposing emissions reduction obligations on a host of new states, ratcheting down power plants’ allowances for ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) and regulating a series of manufacturing and energy sectors for the first time. “Every community deserves fresh air to breathe. EPA’s ‘Good Neighbor’ plan will lock in significant pollution reductions to ensure cleaner air and deliver public health protections for those who’ve suffered far...

Pro-biofuel lawmakers reintroduce bill for year-round E15

Bipartisan lawmakers from biofuel-producing states have reintroduced legislation to enable nationwide sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) year-round, pressing for sales to be allowed this summer when they would otherwise be barred, and seeking to go beyond EPA’s recent proposal to allow summer sales for eight states only starting in 2024. The bills introduced March 14 in the House and Senate are the same as similar measures that failed in the last Congress, but they now have added urgency,...

States Urge EPA To Keep Aftermarket Enforcement Initiative A Priority

Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are urging EPA to retain its priority enforcement focus on stopping installation of aftermarket defeat devices, which the agency is seeking to drop from its National Enforcement & Compliance Initiative (NECI) and return to the regular enforcement program as it develops new priorities for fiscal years 2024-27. Also South Dakota is warning EPA against adding climate change and environmental justice (EJ) to the NECI. EPA took comment through March 13 on its Jan. 12 proposal setting new...

Environmentalists, Biofuels Groups Clash Over EPA’s RFS Impacts Report

Environmentalists are again criticizing EPA for its alleged failure to account for harms to air, water and protected species from its implementation of the renewable fuel standard (RFS) in the agency’s latest report to Congress on the issue, while biofuels groups accuse the agency of giving too much credence to skeptics of the program’s benefits. EPA in its Jan. 3 draft Triennial Report to Congress about the RFS’ environmental effects again avoided tying any harms directly to the program. As...

Schatz Cites ‘Very Real Possibility’ Permitting Deal Fails This Congress

A key advocate for legislation to speed transmission needed for clean power is tempering expectations that lawmakers will strike a deal on relevant permit fixes this Congress, pledging to push hard on the issue but arguing House Republicans might be more focused on political messaging than reaching a compromise on the issue. “Although I think this is an essential aspect of moving forward, I don’t want to catastrophize the very real possibility we are not going to enact anything in...

Farmers sue EPA over tractor emission-control repair

The National Farmers Union (NFU) is suing EPA over its alleged failure to ensure that farm equipment maker John Deere is adhering to Clean Air Act requirements to make information available regarding the repair and maintenance of emissions control systems on vehicles, in a novel test of the agency’s powers and policy on the hot-button question. In their March 4 suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, William Cade and the NFU ask the court...

Manufacturers Make Late Push To Exit CSAPR As Rule Primed For Release

Manufacturing industries that would be newly regulated under EPA’s proposed expansion of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) interstate air emissions program are waging a last-ditch push to weaken the rule or be excluded from it entirely, as EPA promises “flexibility” in the final regulation that is now anticipated March 15. In a recent series of meetings with White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and EPA officials, paper, steel and cement industry associations warned EPA that its proposal...

Groups Seek First-Time SIP Enforcement Via Novel Civil Rights Complaint

Environmentalists have filed a precedent-setting civil rights complaint asking EPA to take action against California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) to enforce Clean Air Act-mandated fees for areas in severe ozone nonattainment. The March 6 Title VI petition -- filed by Earthjustice on behalf of Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and others -- is just the latest action citing the civil rights law as a mechanism to enforce state implementation plan (SIP) requirements, though this is the...

Top EPA Advisor Seeks To Address Compliance Concerns In New Rules

Former Obama-era EPA enforcement chief Cynthia Giles, now back at the agency as a senior advisor to the air office, is once again touting the benefits of her NextGen compliance concept -- and urging that EPA’s rule writers be forced to formally incorporate consideration of compliance issues into their regulations to avoid poor results. Speaking in a personal capacity on a March 9 webinar hosted by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), Giles expanded on the principles she advocates in her...

D.C. Circuit splits boiler MACT litigation

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has granted environmentalists’ request to sever their lawsuit against the latest version of EPA’s rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) for industrial boilers from industry suits with which it had been consolidated. In a March 10 order , the court splits environmentalists’ issues from the original suit , U.S. Sugar Corp. v. EPA , creating a second case, California Communities Against Toxics, et al v. EPA, et al...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Sign up for 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.