EPA Agenda

EPA Floats ‘Narrow’ Methane Rule Changes Amid Questions Of Trump Plans

EPA is proposing two modest changes to its oil and gas methane emissions rule, in response to industry petitions for reconsideration, including more time for gas flaring during emergencies, and more flexible language for demonstrating compliance with an efficiency standard for emissions control equipment. The Dec. 20 proposal , which will be subject to 45 days of public comment upon publication in the Federal Register , comes amid broader questions about the extent to which the incoming Trump administration might...

Attention Shifts To Remaining California Waiver Requests After Approvals

Observers are awaiting EPA’s responses to California’s remaining requests for preemption waivers covering the state’s mobile source standards, amid expectations the agency is particularly likely to approve a quartet of measures limiting emissions from harbor craft, offroad diesel vehicles, transport refrigeration units and small offroad engines. The shift of attention -- shortly after EPA blessed California’s Advanced Clean Car II (ACC II) and “omnibus” heavy truck rules -- comes amid a diminishing window for the agency to formally respond to...

EPA Rebuffs ‘Major Questions’ Attacks On Waiver For California ZEV Rules

EPA is outlining numerous arguments for why its newly granted preemption waiver for California’s Advanced Clean Cars II program -- including its 100 percent zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) requirement by 2035 -- should survive the Supreme Court’s “major questions” doctrine or various other legal attacks. Many of the justifications -- detailed in a decision document released Dec. 18 -- echo agency arguments during defenses of prior California waivers as well as federal EPA emissions standards that include electric vehicles as...

EPA Backs California Clean Car, Truck NOx Waivers, With Others Pending

EPA is granting waivers of federal preemption for California’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) vehicle emissions program, which includes a 100 percent zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate by 2035, and for the state’s heavy truck “omnibus” nitrogen oxides (NOx) rule, though California’s programs will likely face stiff scrutiny from the Trump administration. The move announced Dec. 18 comes with the agency indicating it is still reviewing other pending requests from the state for similar approvals of other mobile source...

Trump team reportedly plans aggressive set of EV policy rollbacks

The Trump transition team is reportedly planning an aggressive suite of actions to scale back federal policies that support electric vehicles (EV), including by significantly scaling back EPA’s greenhouse gas standards for light-duty vehicles and repurposing funding slated for EV charger deployment. The transition team’s recommendations, outlined by a Dec. 16 report from Reuters , broadly “could strike a blow to U.S. EV sales and production at a time when many legacy automakers, including General Motors and Hyundai have...

Biden EPA Allocates $735 Million For ZEV School Buses, Heavy Trucks

The Biden EPA is allocating nearly $750 million for states, cities and school districts to purchase over 2,400 zero-emissions heavy-duty vehicles, representing the administration’s latest effort to award politically controversial funds before the start of the incoming Trump administration. The agency on Dec. 11 announced $735 million in awards for zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) purchases in 27 states and three tribes. Around 70 percent of the funds will go toward school buses. It’s the latest in a barrage of funding announcements...

D.C. Circuit Judges Grapple With CCS Basis For Power Plant GHG Rules

A three-judge D.C. Circuit panel is grappling with numerous key issues in the Biden EPA’s high-profile power plant greenhouse gas standards, with oral arguments offering hints about where they see vulnerabilities in a measure that has been a chief target for rollback by the incoming Trump administration. The judges’ comments during Dec. 6 oral argument in the case, West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al. , could have implications for future power plant GHG rulemakings, even as the panel...

Environmentalists Seek Guardrails For Advanced Methane Monitoring

Environmentalists are urging that EPA adopt multiple safeguards alongside future efforts to boost use of advanced and emerging monitoring technologies for quantifying methane under the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), even as they and other observers endorse greater reliance over time on such technologies. Advanced monitoring technologies “have enormous potential value for programs such as the” GHGRP, the group Clean Air Task Force (CATF) writes in Nov. 27 comments to an EPA request for information (RFI) to inform a...

Arguments In Power Plant GHG Case Could Inform Future Rules, Experts Say

Legal experts say they will be closely watching D.C. Circuit judges’ comments during Dec. 6 oral argument about key issues concerning EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards, as they could inform the incoming Trump administration’s attempt to scale back the rule or craft future power plant GHG policies. Jeff Holmstead, an industry attorney with the Bracewell law firm, calls it “highly unlikely” that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ever issues a decision in the...

EPA Claims Omitting EVs From Auto Rules Would Be ‘Arbitrary’ Decision

The Biden EPA is arguing that any move to ignore electric vehicles (EVs) when setting its multi-pollutant standards for passenger vehicles would be an “arbitrary” decision, a stance that aimed at defending the measure just weeks before the incoming Trump administration will likely try to scale it back. The argument, detailed in a Nov. 26 response brief in appellate litigation known as Commonwealth of Kentucky, et al. v. EPA, et al. , comes alongside multiple other substantive and procedural defenses...

Automakers Urge Trump Team To Seek ‘Reasonable’ Emissions Rules

The trade group representing auto manufacturers is urging the incoming Trump administration to back “reasonable” vehicle emissions regulations and a “stable” regulatory environment, language that appears to endorse relaxed EPA multi-pollutant standards but not a full-scale rollback of the program. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation outlines the pitch in a broader Nov. 12 letter to President-elect Donald Trump that also objects to the stringency of California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) regulations and seeks preservation of tax incentives that encourage vehicle electrification...

Oil & Gas Producers Detail Push To Scale Back Biden EPA Methane Rule

Independent oil and gas producers are detailing multiple ways in which they hope the incoming Trump EPA will scale back Biden-era methane standards for the sector, acknowledging that the next administration cannot eliminate the rule because the agency faces a congressional mandate to issue standards for new and existing sources. The suggestions for easing the rules -- included in a Nov. 19 memo to the Trump transition team from the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) -- also come as...

Trump Team Faces Complex Effort To Undo EPA Vehicle Emissions Rules

Observers say the incoming Trump administration will face a complicated, multi-year effort to undo EPA’s car and truck emissions regulations as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed, amid questions about whether the auto sector’s electrification investments might temper enthusiasm for a full-scale rollback. The appraisals come amid uncertainty for both foes and backers the regulations, including unresolved litigation over Biden-era EPA and Department of Transportation (DOT) vehicle standards, and a conservative Supreme Court that could prove skeptical of current agency rules...

Trump’s Expected Bid To Repeal Power Plant Rule Faces ‘Tough Sledding’

The incoming Trump administration is expected to quickly ask courts to pause litigation over top Biden EPA climate rules, including power plant emissions limits, to allow the agency time to roll them back, though observers say such efforts would take months or even years as officials seek to develop a robust justification for such policy reversals. Bracewell lawyer Jeff Holmstead, former EPA air chief under President George W. Bush, told Inside EPA’s Climate Extra that he anticipates that “within...

EPA Finalizes Rule For IRA’s Methane Fee Considered Likely Trump Target

EPA is finalizing its rule implementing the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) methane emissions fee, cementing the policy for now even as the rule and its underlying statutory basis are considered highly vulnerable to rollback by the incoming Trump administration and a likely GOP Congress. Even so, the Biden administration’s Nov. 12 release of the rule coincides with a U.S.-China summit on reducing methane and other potent greenhouse gases, which officials are hosting as part of broader international climate talks in...

Trump EPA Faces ‘Complicated’ Path For Any Methane Rule Repeal Effort

President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to pursue a sweeping deregulatory agenda at EPA comes as some observers say the incoming administration faces a heavy lift for any bid to fully scrap oil and gas methane emissions rules as officials attempted during his first term, due to the rules’ complexity and prior Hill action rebuking the initial Trump rollback. Even so, one industry source sees “other avenues” to ease the rules more narrowly, including via formal reconsideration of various provisions of the...

WHEJAC Floats Carbon Management Input But Does Not ‘Endorse’ Projects

White House environmental justice (EJ) advisors are offering an additional suite of recommendations for agencies deploying carbon management projects such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), even though they are taking pains to highlight their threshold opposition to such efforts and say they do not “endorse” them. Many of the recommendations in a report released earlier this month by the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) would bolster communities’ input in such projects, subject the projects to rigorous greenhouse...

Oil & Gas Group Readies Deregulatory Agenda But Warns Of GOP Overreach

A trade group representing oil and gas producers plans to seek modification or repeal of numerous Biden-era climate and other rules should GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump win the election, even as it is warning members that a potential Republican sweep might spur White House or congressional overreach that creates business risks. But much of the American Exploration and Production Council’s (AXPC) deregulatory agenda would struggle if Democratic nominee Kamala Harris wins the presidency, with the industry in that scenario...

As EPA Preps Rules, Environmentalists Seek To Halve Landfills’ Methane

As EPA is developing updated Clean Air Act methane standards for new and existing municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, environmentalists are floating a new report that says the agency can require facilities to cut emissions by more than half by 2050 by making “common-sense” updates to the standards. Recommended requirements in the Oct. 22 report from Industrious Labs, which advocates for decarbonizing the industrial sector, include improvements in gas collection systems and landfill cover requirements. For example, the report recommends...

EPA Reaches First Settlement For Fracking Under Obama-Era Methane Rule

The Justice Department (DOJ), EPA and New Mexico have reached a first-time settlement with an oil and gas producer targeting the company’s failure to follow Obama-era requirements for controlling emissions of methane and other pollution during completion of hydraulic fracturing wells. EPA is touting the Oct. 17 settlement with Hilcorp Energy Co. as the first ever to address violations of the Clean Air Act’s new source performance standards (NSPS) “covering well completions following hydraulic fracturing,” according to an agency press...

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