ISSUE: Clean Air Report

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...

EPA Claims GHG Endangerment Repeal Retains Air Law Preemption Shield

EPA is claiming that repealing the agency’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG limits would nevertheless preserve federal preemption of state vehicle GHG standards under the Clean Air Act (CAA) as well as federal common law claims related to GHGs. The agency’s arguments -- which could affect oil majors’ chief legal defense against a raft of over two dozen climate tort cases proceeding in state courts -- underscore a potential high stakes consequence for industry from EPA’s...

Industry Groups Offer Cautious Pushback To EPA’s GHG Finding Repeal

Major power and oil industry groups are offering cautious pushback to EPA’s proposal to rescind its 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding that underlies its climate rules, indicating that industry is not comfortable with the notion of fully scrapping such rules in large part because it could undercut federal preemption of state rules. While some groups in early reaction to EPA’s July 29 plan are supporting the Trump administration’s proposal to repeal Biden-era vehicle GHG standards, they offered a more careful...

Zeldin Touts GHG Risk Finding Repeal As Unprecedented Deregulatory Move

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is declaring that the agency’s imminent proposal to undo the agency’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG rules “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” previewing arguments the agency will make in defense of the plan. Zeldin’s declaration on a July 29 edition of the conservative podcast Ruthless -- in advance of a scheduled afternoon event in Indiana to formally unveil the proposal -- also took frequent jibes at...

EPA Moves To Extend Oil And Gas Sector Emissions Compliance Deadlines

EPA has released an interim final rule to extend Biden EPA compliance deadlines for control of methane and other emissions from oil and gas facilities, vowing that the measure will be the “first of multiple actions the EPA plans to take to ensure that oil and gas regulations do not overburden producers.” “The extensions in the [new rule] provide more realistic timelines for owners and operators to meet requirements and for states to develop and submit plans for limiting emissions...

Goffman Says EPA GHG Finding Attack Clashes With Supreme Court Ruling

A former top Biden EPA official is expecting that EPA’s imminent proposal to scrap the agency’s greenhouse gas endangerment finding will clash with a key Supreme Court ruling’s “broad” view of EPA’s authority to regulate GHGs, and that it will be difficult for Trump officials to show the costs of the agency’s climate regulations outweigh benefits. “I think there is going to be a lot of tension between that which EPA is proposing to argue and what the Supreme court...

Environmentalists Ramp Up Legal Threats Over Gas Facilities’ Air Permits

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is ramping up threats to sue EPA over the agency’s failure to respond to the group’s multiple petitions to object to Colorado air permits for oil and gas processing equipment, part of a major campaign by the environmentalists against what they say are polluting facilities that increase ozone levels. In a series of recent letters to the agency, CBD gives notice of its intent to sue over EPA’s failure to respond to the petitions...

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...

In New Strategy, Whitehouse Files CRA Challenges To Trump EPA Air Rules

A key Democratic senator is introducing a series of Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions that would disapprove recent EPA air rules, including a precedent-setting state haze plan and compliance deadline extensions in two sectors, signaling a possible new strategy to force up-or-down votes on all or most Trump environment rules. “Democrats will not stand by while the Trump administration auctions off our clean air and climate safety to the highest bidder. These are four of many giveaways from the EPA...

Trump Orders EPA To Ease Permitting To Speed AI Data Center Approvals

President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) to speed the approval and permitting for a broad range of data centers and energy facilities needed for artificial intelligence (AI) is directing EPA to ease clean air and water requirements for “qualifying projects,” as part of the administration’s broader strategy for winning a global “race” to develop AI. The July 23 EO , issued with two other orders for promoting AI development, directs EPA to expedite “permitting on Federal and non-Federal lands by...

Senate Confirms Former White House Staffer Szabo As EPA’s Air Chief

The Senate on a party-line vote late on July 23 confirmed former industry lawyer and White House staffer from the first Trump administration Aaron Szabo to lead EPA’s air office, after contentious confirmation hearings for Szabo and other Trump EPA nominees. Senators voted 49-47 to confirm Szabo, with all Democrats and independents voting against, and four Republicans not voting -- Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Katie Britt (R-AL) and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK). Szabo has officially been serving as...

OMB Reviews EPA SIP Plan On California Truck Smog Check Rule

The White House is reviewing a proposed EPA rule to approve or disapprove California’s heavy-duty truck emissions testing program -- known as “Clean Truck Check” -- as a revision to a state implementation plan (SIP) to attain air standards after officials determined that the plan is a “major” action subject to inter-agency review. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), EPA July 17 submitted its proposed rule addressing California’s 2022 request to include its 2021 rule creating a...

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...

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...

EPA Risks Triggering ‘Anti-Backsliding’ Mandate By Scrapping PM NAAQS

As EPA develops a rule scrapping the Biden EPA’s tougher fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standard, one industry lawyer warns that waiting too long to issue that rule might trigger the Clean Air Act’s safeguards against “backsliding” in air quality, in an unprecedented situation, although Congress may intercede and change the law first. Speaking during an Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA) event July 16, Lucinda Minton Langworthy, an attorney with Hunton Andrews Kurth, said she expects EPA to soon propose...

Trump Waives Air Toxics Rules For Power, Chemical, Sterilizer Facilities

President Donald Trump is issuing another round of Clean Air Act compliance waivers for over 100 industrial facilities from air toxics rules affecting power plants, chemical and polymer facilities, commercial sterilizers, and taconite iron ore production. The waivers are included in a series of four presidential proclamations signed late July 17, providing the facilities two-year delays from compliance with major Biden-era regulations that the Trump EPA is reconsidering and likely to rescind or substantially relax. They follow an initial wave...

EPA Scraps Biden-Era Proposal To Tighten NSR ‘Project Accounting’ Rule

EPA is withdrawing a Biden-era proposal that would have tightened the agency’s Project Emissions Accounting (PEA) air permitting rule that dates from the first Trump administration, citing industry comments that the plan to more strictly define the term “project” and make emissions cuts enforceable is unnecessary and burdensome. In a notice signed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin July 16 ahead of its upcoming publication in the Federal Register July 21, the agency withdraws the May 2024 proposal. “Based on...

House GOP Backs Chemical Industry Call To Ease EPA’s Pyrolysis Rules

House Republicans are endorsing industry calls to ease EPA regulations on controversial chemical recycling processes advanced by the chemical industry, though Democrats say the technology endangers public health and are urging Congress to instead address existing deficiencies in the nation’s recycling infrastructure. Congress should “assess regulatory barriers to proliferation of new technologies and strategies to grow domestic manufacturing capabilities while keeping valuable materials out of landfills,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) told a July 16 hearing...

Former Members Seek Return To CASAC, As EPA Mulls Options For Panel

A number of former members of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are seeking reappointment to the panel, after incoming Trump officials dismissed the entire Biden-era membership and decided to start afresh, with former panel chairs and members of previous expert panels seeking positions, along with fresh faces. The seven-member CASAC advises EPA on how to set national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), and it will be influential in forthcoming reviews of particulate matter (PM) and ozone standards, among...

Facing Extension Suit, EPA Finds San Joaquin Valley Met 1997 PM Limit

EPA is proposing to formally determine that the San Joaquin Valley in California has attained the agency’s 1997 standards for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a move that would frustrate environmentalists’ ongoing push for greater emissions-control policies in a region that has long struggled with poor air quality. However, the proposal could be undercut by pending appellate litigation in which environmental groups allege that the Biden EPA unlawfully granted California officials a year-long extension to attain the standard, part of “a...

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