From Climate Extra

Oil & Gas Sector Cites Global Markets As Reason To Retain GHG Reporting

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is highlighting global energy markets as a reason to maintain some level of EPA’s greenhouse gas reporting requirements, a pitch that supplements separate industry concerns that scuttling the program could compromise the ability to claim federal tax credits for carbon storage and clean hydrogen production. “Maintaining credible reporting is essential to sustaining U.S. competitiveness and ensuring that U.S. [liquefied natural gas (LNG)] -- already among the lowest-emissions options available -- remains a cornerstone of global...

Industry Urges DOJ To Challenge Local Gas Hookup Rules, Building Codes

Industry groups and free market think tanks are encouraging the Trump administration to embrace arguments that various federal laws preempt state and local ordinances that ban or limit the use of gas appliances, a move aimed to bolster the administration’s ongoing attacks on state climate policies. “By banning fossil fuel infrastructure, they are setting an appliance energy use standard of zero for all gas appliances -- a stricter standard than the federal appliance standard, which causes a violation of” the...

Appliance Makers Criticize Eased HFC Limits, Highlighting Industry Split

A key group representing appliance manufacturers is criticizing the Trump EPA’s proposal to ease various Biden-era end-use restrictions for climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons, arguing compliance deadline extensions for the grocery and other sectors would make it hard for manufacturers to plan their products and ultimately aid foreign industry. The EPA proposal “would disrupt multi-year planning and investment by U.S. manufacturers,” argues Samantha Slater, vice president of government affairs with the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) that represents companies that make equipment...

CARB Lists Companies Subject To GHG-Disclosure Laws, Seeks Feedback

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has released a “preliminary” list of thousands of large companies that it believes are subject to the state’s landmark laws requiring firms to report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change-related financial risks, and it is seeking feedback from stakeholders about whether the list is accurate. CARB “encourages companies to complete the survey if they are”: listed but qualify for a potential exemption; listed but should not have been; listed, though a parent company...

Industry, Free Market Groups Craft Broad Target List For State Climate Laws

Industry and free market groups are detailing a broad assortment of state climate laws that they want the Trump administration to challenge in new legal actions, arguing the Justice Department (DOJ) must intervene to assert federal preemption over a host of measures affecting vehicle emissions, climate-related disclosures and cap-and-trade programs. In recent comments submitted to DOJ, the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree Chamber) writes that numerous state and local climate programs “pose substantial burdens on businesses across the...

Washington State Carbon Trading Program Survives High Court Challenge

Washington state’s relatively young greenhouse gas “cap-and-invest” program has survived another major threat to its continued implementation, after the Supreme Court declined to hear a power company’s appeal asserting that the program unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce. The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal, issued in a brief Oct. 6 order , comes nearly a year after state voters in the November election rejected a ballot initiative that would have repealed the carbon trading program. The justices did not...

Shutdown Raises Questions On Pace Of EPA’s GHG Regulatory Rollbacks

Observers are increasingly asking whether the ongoing federal government shutdown could last long enough to slow EPA’s rollbacks of greenhouse gas regulations, even as some sources are flagging factors that could blunt or eliminate such effects, including leftover funds and the possibility that key staff will be exempted from furloughs. “I can’t speak with any certainty,” one agency source says about divergent rumors about how long the agency can continue operating at relatively normal levels with such leftover funds. The...

Environmentalists Press EPA To Disclose AI Use In Vehicle, GHG Rollbacks

Environmentalists are pressing for a “detailed disclosure” by EPA of any use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its rulemaking to undo its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle standards, arguing that failure to do so violates procedural requirements and removes safeguards against error. Their call, as part of broader comments to the agency on its GHG repeal proposal, signals concern with a general EPA statement on the use of AI in rulemakings that the agency quietly posted to its...

DOE Scuttles $7.5 Billion In Clean Energy Funds As Budget Fights Mount

The Department of Energy (DOE) is terminating $7.5 billion for 321 awards supporting 223 projects, largely in Democratic states, for clean energy and related projects -- in an Oct. 2 announcement that critics say is aimed at punishing Democrats for the federal government shutdown. The projects cover a wide range of sectors, including power, biofuel, hydrogen, solar, cement, carbon capture and storage, mining and transportation, though a key Trump official indicated the terminations are aimed at states that voted for...

Groups Say EPA Ignores Trillions In Harm From Ending Vehicle GHG Limits

Environmental and other groups are floating new analyses claiming that EPA’s proposed repeal of Biden-era vehicle greenhouse gas standards for vehicles ignores trillions of dollars of harms the plan would cause, part of an effort to make the case that EPA is acting arbitrarily in moving to scuttle its vehicle GHG program. The analyses are included in broader comments to the agency that claim EPA’s draft cost-benefit analysis for its plan is flawed for reasons including that it ignores the...

CCS Sector Fears End Of EPA’s GHG Reporting Rule Could Harm Permitting

The carbon capture and storage (CCS) sector is pushing back against EPA’s proposal to scuttle greenhouse gas reporting requirements, warning that including CCS-related reporting in its plan would undercut current and planned investments in such efforts and potentially also delay permitting of underground injection wells by EPA or states. During an Oct. 1 public hearing, critics also warned that EPA’s proposed repeal of its GHG reporting rule for nearly all sectors could force industry into other disparate reporting regimes, with...

Gas Firms Say Court Ignores EPCA Precedent In Appeal Over L.A. Boiler Rule

Natural gas firms are urging the 9th Circuit to reverse a lower court ruling that upheld a zero-emission boiler rule in the Los Angeles region, arguing the district court ignored the appellate court’s 2024 ruling that Berkeley, CA’s ban on natural gas hookups to new homes and buildings was preempted by the Energy Policy & Conservation Act (EPCA). “This case presents essentially the same question of federal preemption this Court resolved last year” in California Restaurant Association (CRA) v. City...

EPA Floats HFC End-Use Flexibilities, Aligning With Near-Term Industry Asks

EPA is proposing to provide relief to food retailers, semiconductor manufacturers and others that are required to replace climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons with safer alternatives, issuing a plan that delays compliance deadlines and raises regulatory thresholds but stops short of adopting some of the longer-term exemptions industry sought. EPA Sept. 30 issued a proposal that seeks to extend a host of compliance deadlines, allowing companies in subsectors including residential air conditioning, retail food refrigeration, cold storage warehouses, and semiconductor manufacturing to use...

EEI Warns EPA About Adverse Effects Of Reversing GHG Risk Finding

Investor-owned utilities are cautioning EPA about the potential fallout from removing the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and linked vehicle emissions standards -- arguing federal GHG standards play an important role in displacing federal common law suits and providing the regulatory certainty required to build new gas plants. The power sector is not regulated directly by EPA’s proposed rule, which seeks to rescind the agency’s threshold risk finding and repeal vehicle GHG standards. EPA is separately promulgating a rule that would...

Court Eyes Next Steps In Fight Over EPA’s 2022 California Emissions Waiver

A federal appellate court is asking EPA and other parties to propose next steps in a long-pending suit over a 2022 EPA preemption waiver for certain California vehicle greenhouse gas standards, after the Supreme Court’s June rejection of the appellate court’s prior conclusion that liquid fuels groups lacked standing to challenge the waiver. The request by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a Sept. 29 order in State of Ohio et al v. EPA...

Truck Makers Urge ‘Major Questions’ Attack On Some Vehicle GHG Limits

Truck and engine makers are pressing EPA to rely on the major questions doctrine, rather than scuttling its underlying greenhouse gas endangerment finding, to undo “Phase 3” truck greenhouse gas standards, citing fears that a legal strategy of relying on the GHG finding gambit is too risky to provide needed regulatory relief. The suggestion in Sept. 22 formal comments highlights broader industry fears in both the truck and auto sectors that EPA’s push to rollback vehicle GHG limits in tandem...

Legal Risks Seen Growing As EPA Eyes Quick Repeal Of GHG Risk Finding

EPA’s rapid schedule for finalizing its greenhouse gas endangerment finding rescission could exacerbate the effort’s legal vulnerability, observers say, potentially further imperiling the sweeping move to deregulate GHGs that sources have already characterized as a high-risk venture. “I think some errors due to the schedule are inevitable,” a former EPA official tells Climate Extra . “The issue is whether they will be fatal or not. We can’t know that till we see the final product.” Questions about the impact of...

EPA Urges Court To Preserve Oil And Gas Methane Compliance Delay

EPA is resisting environmentalists’ call for a court to immediately vacate the agency’s interim final rule delaying compliance requirements for oil and gas sector methane and other emissions, claiming it “lawfully invoked” a good-cause public comment exemption and that the groups have failed to justify their “extraordinary request.” EPA’s stance laid out in a Sept. 25 opposition motion filed in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The...

CARB Eases Truck Fleet Rule But Utilities Press For More Compliance Delays

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is easing requirements under its Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) truck regulation applying to state and local government fleets, but power and wastewater utilities are pressing for more compliance relief and credit for trucks powered by renewable natural gas, among other changes to ease their obligations. “Today’s approval of amendments to ACF -- a critical component in the state’s efforts to achieve emissions reductions for a healthier future for all residents -- keeps California advancing...

GOP AGs Offer Path To Scrap Mass. But Doubt Need Given GHG Risk Repeal

Over two dozen GOP attorneys general are offering a path for the Supreme Court to scrap its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling ratifying EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, though they claim this is not necessary for EPA’s proposed GHG finding repeal because the plan is consistent with the “best read” of the Clean Air Act CAA). “[L]egal developments since Massachusetts have shown that GHGs like carbon dioxide are not ‘air pollutants’ under [Clean Air Act section] 302(g),” in...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Request 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.