ISSUE: Clean Air Report

Ethanol Group Asks Trump To Boost E15 Fuel Amid Middle East Tensions

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is pressing President Donald Trump to take further steps to boost sales of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15), urging the removal of EPA regulatory barriers to selling the fuel at existing retail stations, and promoting increased ethanol use as a way to counter oil price volatility caused by conflict in the Middle East. “The surest way to avoid price spikes at U.S. gas stations is to swiftly increase and diversify the supply of fuel available...

EPA Sidesteps Pyrolysis Questions In Weaker Small Incinerators Air Rule

EPA is sidestepping difficult questions about whether to regulate plants using pyrolysis or gasification to dispose of waste as incinerators, or instead as manufacturing facilities subject to weaker rules, in a newly final rule governing “other” solid waste incinerators (OSWI) that primarily eases requirements for small, remote incinerators in Alaska. Administrator Lee Zeldin quietly signed the rule June 17, ahead of its forthcoming publication in the Federal Register . EPA is under a June 30 legal deadline to issue the...

EPA Expected To Target More California Waivers, Older Rules For Repeal

Following its successful effort to revoke some preemption waivers for California mobile source emissions rules, EPA is expected to seek to rescind additional waivers and some state officials are urging the agency to revisit other “burdensome” rules requiring vehicle inspection and maintenance (I/M) in areas out of attainment with ozone standards. The expectations come after President Donald Trump on June 12 signed three Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions rescinding California waivers for its Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) program...

Indiana DEM Chief Optimistic Congress Won’t Cut EPA’s State Grants

Clint Woods, Indiana’s environment commissioner and a former top EPA official in the first Trump administration, is optimistic that Congress will reject the agency’s request to slash crucial grants that allow states to operate their own programs, a move that would avert states’ warnings that they would be forced to return delegated programs to EPA. “From the signals we’ve gotten, I’m pretty confident that Congress recognizes the values of those investments,” Woods, who became commissioner of the Indiana Department of...

High Court’s Clean Air Act Venue Test Sows Confusion, Dissenters Say

The Supreme Court’s new approach to determine when EPA actions are “nationwide” in scope, and therefore must be challenged in national rather than regional appellate courts, is “ambiguous” and “promises protracted and expensive venue litigation” instead of greater clarity on the correct court forum, dissenting justices say. In its June 18 majority opinion in EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, et al. , the high court in a 7-2 vote determined that EPA’s decisions to deny dozens of renewable fuel standard...

D.C. Circuit Faults RFS On Climate, Species Issues But Upholds Volumes

A split federal appeals court has remanded the Biden EPA’s “Set” rule setting renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending volumes for 2023 through 2025, faulting EPA’s climate change impacts analysis and its failure to properly consult other agencies over risks to endangered species, but otherwise deferring to EPA on how to set requirements. In a 2-1 opinion in Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. EPA issued June 20, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for...

Justices Say Fuels Groups Have Standing To Challenge California Waiver

The Supreme Court is concluding that oil and biofuel groups have standing to challenge an EPA preemption waiver allowing California to enforce vehicle greenhouse gas standards, in a decision that likely strengthens the ability of groups to bring litigation against regulations that do not directly regulate them. A key question in the case, Diamond Alternative Energy et al. v. EPA , is whether the fuels groups met the “redressability” prong of demonstrating standing, which refers to whether a court decision...

Senate Parliamentarian Finds EPA Auto Repeal Ineligible For Budget Bill

Senate Democrats are stating that the chamber’s parliamentarian has determined that a proposal to rescind the Biden EPA’s multi-pollutant standards for passenger vehicles is ineligible for fast-track passage via Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill, a finding that could force Trump officials to engage in a complicated process to repeal the rule. The Capitol Hill maneuvering -- which for now leaves the legislative proposal to repeal EPA’s rule in limbo -- comes as industry sources say agency leadership appears to be leaning...

Supreme Court Issues Contrasting Decisions In Air Act Venue Disputes

The Supreme Court has reached contrasting conclusions on whether Clean Air Act challenges to state air plan disapprovals and rejections of waivers from biofuel blending standards should be heard in regional courts or in the District of Columbia Circuit -- finding the air plan decisions have regional effects, but the waiver decisions are national in scope. In their opinion in State of Oklahoma, et al. v. EPA , six justices found that the Biden EPA erred in treating its disapproval...

House GOP Bills To Overhaul Air Standards Seek To Codify Trump Deregulatory Goals

Draft legislation being pushed by House Republicans would overhaul EPA’s process for setting air quality standards in support of the Trump administration’s goal of eliminating perceived regulatory barriers to economic growth. The legislation was unveiled at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing last week where Republican lawmakers underscored the air quality progress made over the past decades under the Clean Air Act to argue for regulatory flexibility in setting new national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), which current law...

GOP State Air Regulators Say EPA Budget Would Obstruct Trump Agenda

Air regulators from predominantly Republican-led states are warning Senate appropriators that the Trump administration’s proposal to slash EPA’s budget would “devastate economic development” by depriving states of funds for permitting and other essential activities, which in turn would obstruct the administration’s deregulatory agenda. “Eliminating or dramatically reducing this funding would devastate economic development (i.e. reduced capacity of air permitting staff and programs), critical infrastructure (i.e. ambient air monitoring networks), and environmental protections across AACPA’s membership,” says written testimony from the...

RFS Plan Anticipates Reallocation Of Waived Volumes To Large Refiners

EPA’s plan to set renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending volumes for 2026 and 2027 anticipates reallocating blending volumes waived for small refineries to their larger competitors, a move that is likely to spur pushback by major refiners, although the agency is for now only suggesting a range of possible waived volumes. The RFS proposal , unveiled by Administrator Lee Zeldin on June 13, would boost RFS volumes and take steps to support domestic biofuel producers and farmers over imports,...

EPA Races To Undo Endangerment Finding With Help Of Climate Skeptics

EPA’s forthcoming proposal to undo its landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare is being crafted with the views of outside scientists that criticize mainstream climate change science findings and is being shepherded by key White House regulatory officials, sources close to the administration say. The sources add that EPA leaders are hoping to release the proposal next month, possibly alongside proposed rollbacks of vehicle greenhouse gas standards. The small team of non-government climate scientists includes...

In Major Redesign, RFS Plan Boosts Domestic Biofuels, Devalues Imports

In a significant redesign of the renewable fuel standard (RFS) program, EPA is proposing to boost markets for domestic biofuel, especially biomass-based diesel, for 2026 and 2027, while reducing the compliance credits available for imported biofuel in a move to promote domestic biofuel production and agriculture. “We are creating a new system that benefits American farmers while mitigating the impact on gas prices and ensuring the continued existence of liquid fuels,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, in a June 13...

Trump, Newsom Clash On Whether CRAs Bar California Auto GHG Limits

President Donald Trump is claiming that newly enacted Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions rescinding federal preemption waivers for several California vehicle rules will bar any future California vehicle greenhouse gas standards, but state officials and their defenders argue the state can and will adopt such requirements. The Clean Air Act allows EPA “to grant waivers to California to address only compelling and extraordinary localized issues,” Trump says in a June 12 statement . But after signing the CRA resolutions into...

Environmentalists Sue Trump, EPA Over First-Time MATS Air Toxics Waivers

Environmentalists are suing President Donald Trump and EPA over the administration’s first-time national security waivers to exempt nearly 50 power plants from a Biden-era rule tightening mercury and air toxics standards (MATS), in a case that could set a precedent for many similar waivers from other air rules. In a suit filed June 12 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 12 groups in Air Alliance Houston, et al., v. Donald Trump challenge the presidential two-year...

EPA Proposal Opens Door For Alternatives To Straight Repeal Of MATS Rule

EPA’s proposal to scrap Biden-era updates tightening the mercury and air toxics standards (MATS) for power plants is also inviting comment on alternatives to straight repeal of the tougher limits on mercury and other toxics, opening the door to other options as the agency rolls back the rule that it says is too costly and consequently not “necessary.” In its proposal unveiled June 11, EPA plans to scrap three key elements of the 2024 Biden MATS rule. These are the...

States Launch Novel Lawsuit Over CRA Attack On California Vehicle Waivers

Nearly a dozen states in a novel lawsuit are detailing multiple constitutional and statutory claims that EPA and other federal officials wrongly rescinded preemption waivers for three California vehicle emissions rules via the Congressional Review Act (CRA), contending the CRA resolutions are invalid and the state rules thus remain enforceable. The states’ June 12 litigation , filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, immediately followed a White House signing ceremony where President Donald Trump asserted...

EPA Floats ‘Poorly Reasoned’ Claims On GHG ‘Significance,’ Observers Say

Observers are faulting EPA’s legal arguments supporting its claim that power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions do not “significantly contribute” to public health harms, arguing the agency’s proposal on the issue is “poorly reasoned” and conflicts with the Supreme Court’s recent administrative law decisions. In its June 11 proposed rule , EPA argued that the agency can consider costs and administration policy priorities when determining if a sector’s emissions “significantly” affect such harms and thus must be regulated under section 111...

EPA Official Tells OTC States To Shelve Calls For Federal Ozone Measures

Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states are warning that federal policy rollbacks will push them further into “nonattainment” with ozone standards and are pressing for continued federal support, though a top EPA official is urging them to shelve any “unrealistic” hopes for federal measures for the duration of President Donald Trump’s term. During the June 11 Spring meeting in Boston of the Ozone Transport Commission (OTC), a group comprising air regulators from 12 states in the region and the District of Columbia,...

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