EPA Agenda

Records Show OMB Officials Urged EPA To Boost Utility GHG Rule Analysis

White House officials’ comments during interagency review of EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas repeal proposal highlighted many of the same concerns that critics have raised since the plan’s release, including that multiple officials preferred a narrower “backup” regulatory option over the primary proposal to scrap all power sector GHG regulation. These concerns are detailed in redline versions of EPA’s rule, recently posted to the proposal’s regulatory docket, reflecting discussions as the rule underwent inter-agency review at the White House Office...

Senate Appropriators Rebuke Multiple EPA Climate Policy Rollbacks

Senate appropriators in their fiscal year 2026 spending bill are rebuking multiple aspects of EPA and other agencies’ climate and clean energy policy rollbacks, voicing support for continued EPA efforts to curb “harmful” greenhouse gases and to take various steps to cut planet-warming emissions. The legislation would give EPA $299 million for “efforts to address harmful air pollutants including greenhouse gases that are contributing to climate change,” the Senate Appropriations Committee says in a report accompanying their FY26 bill for...

IPI Attacks EPA’s Expected Justifications To Scuttle GHG Risk Finding

A progressive think tank is attacking EPA’s expected arguments in its forthcoming proposal to scrap the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding that vehicle GHGs do not sufficiently contribute to public endangerment and that the agency should have factored costs into the finding. In just-released analyses, the New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) asserts EPA’s expected claims clash with other prior risk findings and rules targeting much smaller sources of air pollution. IPI’s pushback comes amid expectations that the...

OMB completes review of EPA methane delay rule

White House officials have completed their inter-agency review of an EPA interim final rule delaying deadlines in the Biden administration’s oil and gas sector methane standards, suggesting that the agency could soon release the measure that would take immediate effect. According to the Office of Management & Budget’s (OMB) website, it completed review of EPA’s rule on July 22. OMB review, the final step in the regulatory process before the agency publicly releases a rule, came after an unusual start...

White House Faces Split Views On Looming Plan To Scrap EPA’s GHG Finding

White House officials are facing divergent stakeholder views as EPA appears poised to release its proposal to rescind its landmark 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding, with Indiana officials seeking agency legal interpretations that restrict analysis to “direct” health effects from GHGs while some industry groups are floating an alternative plan to relax GHG rules. Sources tell Inside EPA ’s Climate Extra that the agency is poised to release its proposal -- coupled with a plan to scrap vehicle GHG...

EDF Renews Warnings About Delaying Biden EPA Methane Rule Deadlines

An environmental group is renewing arguments that EPA’s upcoming interim final rule to delay deadlines in the Biden administration’s oil and gas sector methane rule is on shaky legal ground, as various groups express input on the measure with the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) prior to its release. “The methane rules were adopted through a lengthy three-and-a-half-year rulemaking process, tons of public input and a robust scientific and technical foundation,” Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) attorney Edwin...

Chamber Pitches Utility GHG Rule Analysis Updates To Boost Repeal Case

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is offering suggestions for how EPA should change its cost-benefit analysis of the agency’s proposal to repeal Biden-era power plant greenhouse gas standards, arguing this would reveal the “true cost” of the rules to help justify the Trump administration’s proposal. During July 8 testimony at EPA’s public hearing on the rule, Heath Knakmuhs, vice president and policy counsel for the Chamber’s Global Energy Institute, urged EPA to finalize a rule “that results in the elimination...

Industry Lawyers Flag Legal Worries In Power Plant GHG ‘Contribution’ Plan

Industry lawyers warn that EPA’s sweeping proposal that power plant greenhouse gases do not “significantly contribute” to harmful emissions may violate numerous Supreme Court decisions, and that it appears to undercut the agency’s broader effort to block future administrations from issuing tough GHG limits. One industry lawyer says EPA should instead focus on developing its backup proposal that would largely repeal Biden-era limits -- retaining the agency’s threshold authority to regulate GHGs -- by asserting that carbon capture and storage...

White House Shutters Key Federal Climate Website, Sparking Pushback

The White House has shuttered the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program (USGCRP) website -- including its access to congressionally mandated national climate assessment (NCA) reports on the implications of climate change -- drawing fire from environmentalists and experts involved in the periodic climate reports. Observers are interpreting the move as part of a continuing effort to undermine the USGCRP and the periodic climate reviews, even as they argue that efforts to block access to climate information cannot succeed, urge...

EPA Sends Combined GHG Finding, Vehicle Rule Rollbacks To OMB

EPA has sent to the White House for final review a proposed rule walking back the landmark GHG endangerment finding and vehicle emissions standards -- confirming expectations that the agency would combine its endangerment finding reconsideration with a vehicle rule repeal even as the regulation’s exact scope remains unclear. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) received the proposal, titled “Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Motor Vehicle Reconsideration Rule,” on June 30. EPA’s planned rollback of the greenhouse gas endangerment...

OMB Begins Review Of EPA Plan To Reconsider GHG Reporting Program

The White House has begun reviewing EPA’s proposed rule to reconsider and potentially repeal its greenhouse gas reporting program that has collected emissions data on over 8,000 facilities since 2009, an effort that some have warned could face statutory hurdles given congressional mandates to develop such rules. The White House Office of Management and Budget received the proposal , titled “Reconsideration of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program” on June 27. Such reviews usually take 90 days but can be faster...

Senate Parliamentarian Finds EPA Auto Repeal Ineligible For Budget Bill

Senate Democrats are stating that the chamber’s parliamentarian has determined that a proposal to rescind the Biden EPA’s multi-pollutant standards for passenger vehicles is ineligible for fast-track passage via Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, a finding that could force Trump officials to engage in a complicated process to repeal the rule. The Capitol Hill maneuvering -- which for now leaves the legislative proposal to repeal EPA’s rule in limbo -- comes as industry sources say agency leadership appears to be leaning...

Critics Blast Utility GHG Plan With Costs Over Six Times Higher Than Benefits

Even as the Trump administration is touting compliance cost savings from its plan to revoke all power plant greenhouse gas standards, the agency is acknowledging that those savings would be swamped by foregone public health benefits that the standards would otherwise spur. Specifically, EPA’s regulation impact analysis (RIA) for the June 11 proposal says it would save industry $19 billion in compliance costs, but that it would cost $130 billion in lost public health benefits from reductions in conventional pollution...

EPA Floats ‘Poorly Reasoned’ Claims On GHG ‘Significance,’ Observers Say

Observers are faulting EPA’s legal arguments supporting its claim that power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions do not “significantly contribute” to public health harms, arguing the agency’s proposal on the issue is “poorly reasoned” and conflicts with the Supreme Court’s recent administrative law decisions. In its June 11 proposed rule , EPA argued that the agency can consider costs and administration policy priorities when determining if a sector’s emissions “significantly” affect such harms and thus must be regulated under section 111...

Forthcoming ‘Green Bank’ Venue Decision May Muddy Program’s Future

An upcoming D.C. Circuit decision in litigation over EPA’s “green bank” program could significantly delay grant recipients’ efforts to challenge EPA’s termination of $20 billion in awards, making it challenging for them to stay afloat in the meantime or potentially exposing the funds to congressional repeal. Observers are expecting a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will soon decide whether the case, Climate United Fund, et al. v. Citibank, et al. ,...

EPA Quietly Converts Oil & Gas Methane Delay Rule To Interim Final Status

EPA now appears poised to quickly delay compliance deadlines for Biden-era oil and gas methane standards, with officials stating that the White House is reviewing an interim final rule to delay the deadlines immediately despite prior indications that they would advance the measure as a conventional proposed regulation. The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) earlier posted a notice that it received from EPA on June 4 a “proposed” rule. The rule is expected to extend various deadlines in the...

EPA Begins Oil & Gas Methane Standards Rollback With Deadline Delay Rule

EPA is taking a first step toward rolling back oil and gas sector methane standards, submitting a draft proposal to the White House that would extend compliance deadlines in current rules for new and existing emissions sources amid expectations that officials will develop a subsequent rule to ease the limit themselves. The Office of Management & Budget (OMB) on June 4 began reviewing a proposal focused on deadline extensions for “new, reconstructed and modified sources,” as well as existing sources,...

IPI Rebuts Expected EPA Arguments Over Power Plant GHG ‘Contribution’

A left-leaning think tank is seeking to rebut the Trump EPA’s expected argument that power plants’ greenhouse gases do not “significantly contribute” to climate change and therefore should not be regulated, with the group asserting the sector’s emissions are clearly a major factor in climate change risks. “[P]ower sector emissions ‘significantly contribute’ to climate change by any measure -- and certainly, under the approach that EPA has taken to assess significant contributions over the past [50] years,” New York University’s...

EPA Utility GHG Plan Seen As Bid To Scuttle All Stationary Source Rules

EPA’s draft plan that reportedly would eliminate greenhouse gas rules for power plants because they do not “contribute significantly” to climate harms likely previews the agency’s arguments to scrap controls for all stationary sources, but observers say the approach carries significant legal risks given that the power sector is responsible for a quarter of national emissions. The approach, first reported by the New York Times , relies on a key legal argument that power plants’ GHGs do not “contribute significantly”...

Paper Quantifies ‘Green Bank’ Economic Benefits As EPA Targets Awards

A new think tank analysis is emphasizing the economic benefits of EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) in addition to its climate benefits, with supporters arguing the program aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities even as top Trump officials are targeting a program they claim is fraught with waste and mismanagement. A May 13 analysis from researchers with the group New Energy Innovation and the University of New Hampshire (UNH) finds the GHGRF would generate $65.5 billion in total investment...

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