EPA Agenda

Early Comments Reveal Familiar Split Over EPA Draft CO2 Storage Permits

Early comments over EPA’s proposal to issue three carbon storage permits in the Permian Basin in Texas are highlighting a now-familiar debate about carbon capture and storage (CCS) development, as the permits are also demonstrating the Biden administration’s continued push to deploy CCS to help meet climate goals. “ClearPath is encouraged by [EPA’s] decision to advance three Class VI permits for the geologic sequestration of carbon under the Agency’s Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program,” the conservative clean energy group writes...

Former Official Touts ‘Green Bank’ As Transformative For Energy Justice

Shalanda Baker, a former top environmental justice official at the Department of Energy (DOE), is touting EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GHGRF) that seeks to leverage private funds for local clean energy projects as a transformative step toward addressing environmental challenges in disadvantaged areas. Baker, speaking at an Oct. 8 Resources for the Future (RFF) event, praised EPA and the “brilliant” Jahi Wise, who joined the agency in late 2022 to launch the program and departed a few weeks ago...

OMB Mulls Methane Reconsideration Rule As Industry Urges Faster Pace

Editor's Note: This story replaces an earlier story that incorrectly stated which rule is now under review at the Office of Management & Budget. The White House has begun reviewing EPA’s draft proposed rule that would reconsider what the oil and gas sector says are two crucial provisions in the agency’s methane emissions standards for the sector, even as the industry is pressing officials to take quicker action on the measure to avoid compliance challenges. The White...

New EDF Data Shows Landfill Methane Almost Double Official Reports

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is releasing a new analysis the group says shows that landfills’ methane emissions are nearly double what has been officially reported to EPA, with the group arguing the data underscores the need for the agency to fulfill its pledge to strengthen air standards for the sector. In 2021, landfills reported emissions of roughly 3.7 metric tons of methane, under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). But EDF says satellite measurements suggest the sector’s actual emissions...

EPA Highlights Efforts To Target Municipal Landfill Methane, Reporting

EPA’s enforcement office is issuing two “enforcement alerts” to raise awareness of its efforts to curb air emissions from landfills including the potent greenhouse gas methane, an initiative that the agency says has heightened importance because landfills are the third-largest domestic source of methane. One Sept. 25 alert says EPA has found municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill operators “are failing to properly conduct compliance monitoring and maintenance of gas collection and control systems” and are “violating landfill gas emission rate...

EPA Rule Seeks To Boost Reclaimed HFCs, But Narrows Some Mandates

EPA’s final rule governing the recycling and reclamation of climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) will require the use of reclaimed HFCs when servicing many types of equipment, even as the agency accepted industry calls to scrap proposed mandates to charge new appliances with reclaimed products and track HFC transports. Broadly, EPA’s Sept. 23 rule seeks to boost reclamation and recycling efforts for HFCs to complement the agency’s broader program sharply phasing down production of virgin HFCs, often used in refrigeration and air-conditioning...

Environmentalists Seek Protections After EPA Enforcement At Carbon Well

An EPA enforcement action against one of the country’s first “Class VI” carbon sequestration wells is underscoring environmentalists’ concerns about leaks from the burgeoning technology even as the Biden administration is pressing to increase its deployment, with advocates calling for additional protective measures at other carbon capture and storage (CCS) sites. “What it tells me is that when we say things can and do go wrong, we’re absolutely correct,” said Earthjustice’s Jenny Cassel, senior attorney with the group’s Clean Energy...

API Presses EPA For Quicker Reconsideration Of Methane Rule Elements

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is pressing EPA for quicker action on what it is says are crucial provisions in the oil and gas methane standards that the agency has agreed to formally reconsider, with the group asserting that an apparent EPA plan to propose updates later this year is too slow to prevent looming compliance challenges. “Based on recent discussions with EPA staff, it appears that EPA has actively been working on a reconsideration rule, with the goal of...

Petitioners Slam EPA’s Reliance On IRA Credits In Power Plant GHG Rule

GOP-led states, power companies, and other critics of EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards are detailing their legal arguments against the rule, including claims that officials erroneously relied on recently enhanced tax credits to show reduced costs for carbon capture and storage (CCS), which forms the basis for the rule’s strictest standards. Those claims supplement more-familiar arguments that CCS is an unproven technology as critics detail their legal case in a Sept. 6 opening brief in West Virginia, et al....

EPA Seeks To Raise Profile Of Enforcement Against Illegal HFC Imports

EPA is issuing an “enforcement alert” to raise awareness of its major initiative for curbing illegal imports of climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) amid a domestic phase-down of the chemicals under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act, with the topic representing a key element in both the agency’s enforcement and climate strategies. The Sept. 6 alert “emphasizes that the EPA is vigorously enforcing the AIM Act, using civil and criminal enforcement authorities, to prevent the illegal import, production, sale, or distribution,...

EPA Seeks Input For Possible Rule On ‘Advanced’ Methane Monitoring

EPA is seeking feedback for a possible rulemaking that could expand use of “advanced and emerging” methane monitoring technologies in its greenhouse gas reporting program (GHGRP) for the oil and gas sector after the agency’s recently issued updates to the program only incorporated such technologies in a relatively limited way. EPA is also suggesting that any technology updates could also apply to methane reporting requirements for the landfill sector, according to a Federal Register notice slated to be published...

New EPA Criteria Seek To Help Standardize ‘Clean’ Steel, Concrete Claims

EPA is releasing new criteria to implement its construction product “labeling” program that seeks to help federal purchasers and others identify and buy low-carbon products such as steel and concrete, a move that Biden officials hope will spur a broader uptake of such products. “By clearly labeling what ‘buy clean’ means for products like concrete, glass and steel, EPA will help accelerate demand for these materials and continue to build the clean energy economy,” EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office...

EPA Urged To Adopt ‘Comprehensive’ Gas Plant Rule Amid Agency Struggle

House Democrats are urging EPA to adopt comprehensive greenhouse gas and other emissions standards for existing gas-fired power plants, as the agency works to overcome competing stakeholder views that Administrator Michael Regan says could complicate the pending rulemaking. The rules -- which EPA says it plans to propose by the end of the year -- “must take a comprehensive approach to the existing gas fleet by addressing all types of gas plants and their cumulative impacts, as well as the...

OIG Provides Mixed Take On EPA School Bus Program Implementation

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has concluded that the agency has followed most of the bipartisan infrastructure law’s requirements for implementing its $5 billion Clean School Bus Program, but still needs to improve internal controls to ensure that both the buses being replaced and the new low- and zero-emissions buses meet the program’s requirements. In addition, EPA and the OIG are disagreeing on whether EPA is taking sufficient steps to ensure that school districts receiving funding for electric buses...

EDF Methane Data Bolsters Calls To Strengthen Oil And Gas Sector Scrutiny

Environmentalists are highlighting new data showing methane emissions rates from areas representing most domestic oil and gas production are over four times higher than comparable EPA data, a result they say is consistent with prior studies but showcases the need for the agency to strengthen its reporting program to account for evolving direct measurement capabilities that also enable unprecedented scrutiny of production regions. The new direct measurements “underscore the importance of EPA continuing to update its [greenhouse gas] reporting program...

Environmentalists Target Industrial Sector GHGs For Possible Harris Term

Evergreen Action, the climate-focused environmental group, is outlining its wish list for a possible Harris administration -- including a broad array of EPA actions, such as new rules to drive down industrial emissions, tougher permit requirements and working with states to support strict power-sector standards. In a report released July 31, the group -- which was a key driver for much of the Biden administration’s whole-of-government climate agenda -- recommends the agency subject a range of industrial sources, including boilers,...

D.C. Circuit Reopens Briefing In Two Vehicle Cases On Standing, Deference

A federal appellate court is seeking new briefing in litigation over a pair of high-profile Biden administration vehicle rules to discuss the potential impact of recent Supreme Court and other rulings on the long-pending litigation, a move that will almost certainly further delay a ruling in the cases that were argued in September 2023. In a July 29 order , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asked parties in litigation over EPA’s model year 2023-2026...

EPA Pledges To Propose Updated Landfill Methane Standards In 2025

After longstanding pressure from environmental groups, EPA has announced plans to issue sometime next year a proposed rule that would update methane emissions standards for new and existing municipal solid waste landfills, even as the agency and its allies are fighting litigation from the landfill sector on its greenhouse gas reporting rules. The White House announced the rulemaking schedule during its July 23 summit on addressing climate change “super pollutants.” EPA’s expects to propose in 2025 standards to cut emissions...

Regan ‘Confident’ On GHG Rule But Sees ‘Tougher’ Road On Existing Gas

EPA Administrator Michael Regan is “extremely confident” in the legal durability of EPA’s major power plant GHG rule for new gas and existing coal plants in the face of legal challenges, though he is warning of a “tougher” road for the companion multipollutant rule for existing gas plants in the face of strong divisions among stakeholders, including over available control technologies. His comments, to a July 23 event hosted by the Climate Action Campaign, come as a coalition of over...

EPA Taps Recipients For $4.3 Billion In IRA Grants In Bid To Shield Funds

EPA is announcing selected recipients for $4.3 billion in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) climate pollution grants, in the latest Biden administration move to shield as much IRA funding as possible from clawbacks if Republicans capture the White House, with Administrator Michael Regan citing plans to fully “obligate” the funding by this fall. The selection of 25 grant recipients in 30 states is the latest step in administering the $5 billion IRA climate pollution grants program, after the agency last year...

Pages

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