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Environmentalists Say EPA’s MATS Repeal Hinges On Unlawful Cost Issues

Environmentalists are warning EPA that its plan to scrap the tougher Biden-era mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for power plants depends on unlawful cost considerations to find the rule not “necessary,” advancing a new legal interpretation of the law’s technology review mandates to reject “cost-effectiveness” as a factor. In extensive Aug. 11 comments on the Trump EPA proposal to rescind the Biden rule, an alliance of major environmental groups says, “EPA cannot finalize the proposal because to do so...

EPA Formally Dissolves 2024 Union Contract, As AFGE Vows Litigation

EPA is officially dissolving its contract with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, the largest union representing agency employees, dealing a major blow to the union’s ability to function and represent employees in disputes with the agency. The move, which the union announced Aug. 8, will end AFGE’s ability to file grievances on behalf of workers and force union representatives to conduct their business on personal time, a regional union source tells Inside EPA . EPA has...

Biomass Sector, Lawmakers Urge EPA To Preserve RFS Electricity Credits

Biomass producers, with support from lawmakers from both parties, are pressing EPA to retain the possibility of earning renewable fuel standard (RFS) credits for biomass electricity used in transportation, arguing that the Trump administration’s aversion to electric vehicles (EVs) should not disadvantage other sectors. EPA in its proposal setting RFS biofuel blending volumes for 2026 and 2027 categorically rules out any future issuance of the credits, known as electric renewable identification numbers (eRINs), regardless of which entities would benefit from...

EPA’s Recent CCR Actions Could Preview Direction Of Coal Ash Rules

EPA’s recent actions rolling back Biden-era coal ash policies and delaying compliance deadlines could preview the direction it takes overhauling the 2024 rule governing legacy coal combustion residuals (CCR) surface impoundments and potentially even its 2015 CCR rule, given that the changes it has already made hew closely to industry advocacy. EPA is currently facing an Aug. 11 deadline to file a motion to govern future proceedings in the suit City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri v. EPA, et al. ,...

EPA Plan To Drop Stricter NSR ‘Accounting’ Faces Environmentalists’ Suit

Environmental groups are pledging to sue over EPA’s decision to scrap a Biden-era proposal to tighten the agency’s project emissions accounting (PEA) rule that eased air permitting requirements, asking a federal court to pause an existing suit over the issue while they prepare fresh litigation. In an unopposed Aug. 1 motion to govern proceedings in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA, et al. , environmentalists ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for a...

EPA Haze Policy Draws Legal Threats In Fights Over Texas, Oklahoma Plans

EPA is facing mounting legal threats from environmentalists and East Coast states over its policy for approving states’ regional haze plans to show “reasonable” progress toward meeting visibility goals, as the agency relies on the new approach to approve plans from Texas, Oklahoma and other states. Industry groups, however, are defending the agency’s approach. In comments on the agency’s proposal to withdraw a Biden-era partial disapproval of plans for Texas and Oklahoma, and to instead approve the Texas and Oklahoma...

Suit Over Steel Sector Air Rule Tests EPA Policy Of Delaying Compliance

Environmentalists are challenging EPA’s recent practice of delaying compliance deadlines for Biden-era air rules via interim final rules that avoid the traditional notice-and-comment process, attacking the agency’s use of a “good cause” exemption to delay deadlines for steel plants in a lawsuit that may also affect similar delays for other air rules. In Clean Air Council, et al. v. EPA , a suit filed July 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, environmental groups...

Court To Weigh First Class Action Injunction Request Over EPA Grant Freeze

A district court judge is slated to hear arguments next week in the first class-action suit seeking to force the Trump EPA to release previously obligated environmental justice (EJ) grants, even though the agency is arguing the case is moot because the grant funds were rescinded in Republicans’ recently enacted reconciliation law. However, environmentalists say the case is not moot because the vast majority of the $3 billion at issue was not rescinded in the law. Judge Richard Leon of...

EPA Seeks To Extend Energy Star ICR, Opening Door To Retaining Program

EPA is seeking to extend an expiring Information Collection Request (ICR) to inform its Energy Star voluntary efficiency labeling program, a routine step that appears to leave the door open to retaining the program that a broad range of supporters feared the Trump administration was planning to eliminate. The agency is set to publish the proposed ICR in the Federal Register Aug. 1. Although the extension request is not a definitive indication of EPA’s plans, if the ICR is...

Key Democrat Sets Conditions On GOP Call For Bipartisan Permitting Talks

A top Senate Democrat is laying out conditions for any bipartisan agreement on permitting reforms, though it is not clear if Republicans and the Trump administration will agree to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) call to rein in the president’s “lawless” activities or apply any reforms to clean energy projects, not just fossil fuels. “It makes no sense for Democrats to agree to permitting reform until the Trump administration stops its lawless disregard for congressional authority and judicial orders,” Whitehouse, the...

Facing Tight Deadline, Industry Urges Corps To Ease NWPs In Second Rule

Energy, construction, mining and other industry groups are urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to craft a second rule, alongside its five-year overhaul of dozens of Clean Water Act (CWA) dredge-and-fill general permits, that would ease those permits, given the agency’s tight timeframe to reissue the permitting package before it lapses in 2026. An industry coalition filed July 18 comments on the Corps’ proposal to reissue and modify its nationwide permits (NWPs), emphasizing its strong support for the reauthorization...

‘Appalled’ Appropriators Order EPA To Preserve ORD, Improve Transparency

‘Appalled’ Senate appropriators are criticizing EPA’s plans to eliminate its research office in unusually strong terms while ordering officials to maintain and restore the office’s staffing levels and functionality, in addition to expressing frustration with EPA’s reorganizations, staff cuts, grant terminations and lack of transparency. The committee voted 26-2 July 24 to approve EPA’s fiscal year 2026 spending legislation , which says EPA “shall maintain staffing levels within the Office of Research and Development by hiring, retaining, and rehiring after...

Senate Appropriators Double EPA’s Budget Request, Setting Showdown

Senate appropriators have approved EPA’s fiscal year 2026 budget at $8.6 billion, more than double the $4.16 billion the agency requested and more than the $7 billion House Republicans are planning to provide, with the increased spending aimed at boosting funding for water infrastructure, agency personnel and other measures. But the funding increase could spark a showdown as policymakers scramble to approve the spending before the end of the fiscal year at the end of September. The Senate Appropriations Committee...

House GOP Urges EPA To Prioritize Development Of CCR Permit Program

House Republican appropriators are urging EPA to prioritize development of a federal coal combustion residuals (CCR) permitting program, a rule that many stakeholders have sought to set standards for the growing number of states expected to seek authority to implement their own programs. The recommendations, contained in report language attached to EPA’s fiscal year 2026 spending bill, also call for EPA to prioritize development of measures that encourage beneficial reuse of ash waste. The House Appropriations Committee voted to advance...

EPA Readies Sweeping Air Permitting Changes, Spurring Early Pushback

EPA is preparing a broad overhaul of air permitting requirements that will likely revive some policies from the first Trump administration that were either not finalized or reversed by Biden officials, part of a push to boost construction and use of power plants and other facilities, but the plans are already spurring legal warnings from environmentalists. Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the forthcoming changes in a Fox News op-ed published July 17, couching the overhaul as necessary for the Trump...

State Officials Weigh CWA’s Effectiveness In Meeting Water Quality Goals

The Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA), which represents state water regulators, is seeking input from its members on the effectiveness of the Clean Water Act (CWA) in meeting its water quality goals, a move that opens the door to states eventually weighing in on any EPA or congressional efforts to overhaul the law. According to a state source, ACWA recently created a CWA Program Review Task Force charged with evaluating the effectiveness of the water law in meeting its...

EPA Announces ORD RIFs, Cutting Staff Levels To Lowest Since Reagan Era

EPA has announced that it will conduct a reduction in force (RIF) within the Office of Research and Development (ORD), slashing most of the office that provides the scientific foundation for regulations and cleanups, though it has yet to issue long-awaited RIF notices to employees and is not specifying how many ORD staff will be laid off. Additionally, sources say -- and EPA has confirmed -- that ORD staff learned about their imminent firings from EPA’s press release about the...

OECA Reorganization Will Be ‘Relatively Mild,’ But Buyout Losses Loom

EPA’s plans to restructure the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) mainly consist of small-bore changes that are unlikely to raise structural barriers to enforcement, sources say, though a new round of buyout and retirement offers could prove more drastic. The reorganization’s main goals include consolidating offices to reflect decreased staff levels, moving non-law enforcement functions to program offices and housing certain administrative functions in one place, former longtime EPA enforcement official Gary Jonesi tells Inside EPA July...

Environmentalists Warn EPA Over Industry Bid To Revive Trump 401 Rule

Industry groups are urging EPA to quickly reinstate the first Trump administration’s policy governing states’ Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 water quality certifications, but environmentalists are warning that reinstating the 2020 rule, which was vacated by a federal court before being temporarily reinstated by the Supreme Court, would not pass legal muster. Weakening section 401 “would be on very shaky ground,” Daniel Estrin, general counsel and legal director of Waterkeeper Alliance, said during EPA’s July 16 listening session on...

D.C. Circuit Rejects Environmentalists’ Standing In Drilling Permits Lawsuit

The D.C. Circuit is rejecting environmentalists’ standing in their long-running challenge to thousands of Department of the Interior (DOI) oil and gas drilling permits, dealing a blow to their broader effort to halt fossil fuel activity on public lands after they accused the department of playing a “shell game” with its permitting approach. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a July 15 opinion in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v....

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