ISSUE: Clean Air Report

Facing Suit, EPA Plans To Scrap Compliance Delay For Coke Ovens Rule

EPA says it will withdraw its two-year compliance extension for coke oven air toxics limits, arguing the delay is unnecessary as it reconsiders the Biden-era limits, sidestepping broader legal arguments about “good cause” for the delay and contradicting industry’s claims that it faces “peril” absent the extension. In a Sept. 18 filing in GASP, et al. v. EPA , a case brought by environmental groups against the interim final rule (IFR) that established the delay, EPA says it does not...

EPA Disputes Inspector General Finding Of Air Emissions Underreporting

EPA is disputing new findings from its Office of Inspector General (OIG) that air quality monitoring networks nationwide have underreported air pollution because of emissions surges when monitors are inactive, although the agency under the Biden administration already agreed to withhold monitoring schedules to prevent such surges. In its Sept. 17 report , “Evaluation of the EPA’s Oversight of State and Local Ambient Air Monitoring Operating Schedules,” the OIG found that when “intermittent” air monitors were not in operation, air...

House GOP Seeks To Ease Air Permitting As Democrats Balk At Draft Bills

House Republicans’ new bills to ease Clean Air Act requirements for states and industry are running into resistance from Democrats concerned that the measures are too broad and will create new waiver authorities that the Trump administration might abuse, even though some Democrats might agree with elements of the package. At a Sept. 16 House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, Republicans on the environment subcommittee threw their weight behind the bills that are aimed at easing air permitting and other...

In Blow To EPA Plan, NAS Says GHG Harms ‘Beyond Scientific Dispute’

The National Academies’ just-issued review of recent climate science says the “evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused [greenhouse gases] is beyond scientific dispute,” rebuffing EPA’s claims, as part of its proposal to undo its 2009 GHG endangerment finding, that the science is unsettled. The Sept. 17 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) underscores appraisals from many observers that EPA’s final rule will have to rely on legal...

Utah Group, Harley Dealers Reach Landmark Clean Air Act Settlement

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment (UPHE) and four local Harley-Davidson dealerships have reached what may be the first proposed Clean Air Act citizen suit settlement, following the group’s successful enforcement action several years ago against the “Diesel Brothers,” hosts of a popular TV show, and their parts distributor, TAP Worldwide. The Sept. 10 proposed consent decree in UPHE v. Harley-Davidson of Salt Lake City, LLC, et al. , in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, resolves...

EPA Floats Options For Full, Partial ‘Reallocation’ Of Waived RFS Volumes

EPA is floating a “co-proposal” that suggests either a full “reallocation” of waived biofuel blending volumes for small refiners under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) in future years, or a 50 percent reallocation, under a plan that in effect would see volumes waived for 2023, 2024 and 2025 added instead to proposed volumes for 2026 and 2027. In its proposal announced Sept. 16, EPA suggests a full reallocation of waived volumes to non-exempt refiners could be justified to avoid a...

CARB Seeks To Revive Older Auto Emissions Limits After Waiver Fight

California air regulators are launching an emergency rulemaking to reinstate criteria emissions limits that had been superseded by the state’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) and “omnibus” truck nitrogen oxides (NOx) rules, after Congress scuttled preemption waivers for those rules using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). California Air Resources Board (CARB) officials are doing so while asserting their right to enforce the more stringent standards from ACC II and the omnibus rule, in the event the state succeeds in...

EPA Downplays Congressional Directive For GHG Reporting In Repeal Plan

EPA’s proposed rule to scrap nearly all greenhouse gas reporting for industry is brushing aside arguments that Congress directed such reporting over a decade ago, with the agency also claiming it lacks a basis for requiring “continuous” emissions tracking under its Clean Air Act (CAA) information-gathering authority. EPA’s Sept. 12 proposal also acknowledges that undoing its GHG Reporting Rule (GHGRP) could complicate implementation of federal tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as well as clean hydrogen, but the...

Zeldin Revives Trump NSR Policy Aimed At Barring EPA ‘Second Guessing’

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says the agency has re-issued a policy from the first Trump administration aimed at barring officials from “second guessing” states and industry when deciding whether “major source” new source review (NSR) air permits are necessary for new or modified facilities, the latest in a series of NSR revisions he has announced. Zeldin announced the 2017 policy’s reinstatement , reversing the Biden administration 2022 rescission , during a Sept. 15 White House meeting with industry groups, key...

Environmentalists Target Steel Plant Permits Amid Wider Fight With EPA

Three environmental groups are threatening to sue EPA over its failure to respond to their petitions calling for the agency to object to the air permits of two major steelmaking plants in Indiana, litigation that would open a new front against the facilities amid an ongoing fight over EPA’s delay of tougher Biden-era rules for the sector. In a notice of intent to sue (NOI) letter sent to EPA Sept. 3, a coalition of groups -- Environmental Law and Policy...

Judge Denies DTE Bid To Appeal Subsidiary’s NSR Liability On Eve Of Trial

A federal judge is denying Michigan utility DTE’s request to certify interlocutory appeal to the 6th Circuit and delay the start of a Sept. 15 bench trial to determine whether it is liable for violating Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) rules when its subsidiary EES Coke modified its plant in 2014 in violation of the program’s rules. In a Sept. 11 order in United States v. EES Coke Battery, LLC, et al. , Judge Gershwin Drain of the...

Biogas Sector, Refiners Sue Over EPA’s 2024 Partial Cellulosic RFS Waiver

Producers of renewable natural gas (RNG) from landfills and animal feeding operations, along with oil refiners, are suing EPA over its partial waiver of 2024 requirements for “cellulosic” biofuel under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), with gas producers likely to argue the cut was unlawful, while refiners argue it was insufficient. The Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas Sept. 4 filed its suit against EPA’s July 7 rule, which reduced the cellulosic biofuel blending requirement for 2024. The coalition filed its...

Ruling Could Enable EPA To Retain ‘Defenses’ In Multiple Air Toxics Rules

The recent D.C. Circuit ruling upholding “affirmative defenses” for plant malfunctions from civil liability in Clean Air Act (CAA) Title V permits may enable the agency to reverse or modify its practice of removing such measures from multiple air toxics regulations, sources say. In its Sept. 5 ruling in SSM Litigation Group v. EPA, et al. , a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned a Biden-era rule that required the removal...

GOP Senators Push Bill To Ease EPA ‘Events’ Waivers For Prescribed Burns

Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) are pushing a draft bill to enable “prescribed” burning of forests to more easily qualify for Clean Air Act “exceptional events” waivers, a measure that Democrats say they may be able to back if supporters fix certain “loopholes” in the current draft. During a Sept. 10 EPW legislative hearing, Republican senators strongly supported the “Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act,” (WEPA), a draft measure that would allow state air regulators to...

EPA Moves To Ease NSR Permitting With New ‘Construction’ Definition

EPA is moving forward to ease new source review (NSR) preconstruction permitting, agreeing with Arizona air officials’ decision that a semiconductor manufacturer does not need a permit to build initial stages of a planned facility, under a narrower definition of “begin actual construction” that appears likely to form the basis for a regulation next year. For now, the agency is implementing the policy on a case-by-case basis, starting with its approval of a semi-conductor facility in Maricopa County, AZ. But...

Environmentalists’ Suit Tests EPA’s New Haze Policy Easing State Approvals

Environmental groups are suing over the Trump EPA’s new national policy that allows the agency to more easily approve states’ plans for curbing regional haze, targeting the agency’s approval of West Virginia’s plan that relies on a non-statutory metric in a way that environmentalists claim unlawfully overrides Clean Air Act requirements. National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, and Earthjustice in their Sept. 4 suit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit challenge the agency’s July 7...

D.C. Circuit Revives EPA Emergency ‘Affirmative Defense’ Pollution Rule

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit has reinstated EPA’s 30-year-old policy that had provided industry with an affirmative defense against enforcement actions in the event of an unavoidable emergency, finding that the Biden-era measure that sought to rescind the policy was arbitrary and capricious. “EPA rescinded a [30]-year-old affirmative defense on the ground that it was unlawful under the Clean Air Act,” the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said in the Sept...

EPA Moves To Disband Longstanding Clean Air Act Advisory Committee

EPA is moving to disband its Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC) that has provided advice on implementing the statute for over three decades, citing the move as a result of a broader review of the agency’s advisory panels as well as “efficiency and cost saving” considerations. The agency notified the three dozen members of the panel, established in 1990 to provide independent advice on issues associated with implementation of the 1990 air act amendments, in a Sept. 4 email...

D.C. Circuit Delays PM2.5 NAAQS Lawsuit, Buying EPA More Time For Repeal

The D.C. Circuit has granted EPA’s request for a further 45-day pause in litigation over the agency’s tougher 2024 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), buying more time for EPA to issue its proposal to scrap the Biden rule. In a Sept. 4 order in the consolidated suit Commonwealth of Kentucky, et al. v. EPA, et al. , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit grants EPA’s abeyance request, over the...

EPA Outlines Broad Slate Of Air Rules To Scrap, Replace Biden Measures

EPA is outlining an ambitious slate of upcoming rulemakings to quickly scrap and replace Biden-era air rules that now includes an imminent rollback of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standards, a two-step plan to replace stayed interstate ozone regulations and moves to ease air permitting, as well as a host of air toxics rule rollbacks. The newly released Unified Agenda of upcoming rulemakings released Sept. 4 indicates that the reconsideration of the tougher Biden PM2.5 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS)...

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