SPECIALS

EPA’s Climate Endangerment Repeal Stokes Key Questions For Industry

EPA’s controversial proposal to repeal the Obama-era climate change endangerment finding, underlying most of the federal government’s greenhouse gas controls, has presented key questions for industry groups who are generally expected to benefit from the Trump administration’s overall deregulatory push. For instance, electric utilities and automakers argue the repeal could create legal and regulatory uncertainties that would thwart future industry investments, even while not directly opposing Trump’s rollbacks. At the same time, environmentalists argue EPA failed to fully account for...

Former EPA Chiefs Charge GHG Risk Reversal Violates Agency Mission, Law

Three former EPA administrators serving under both Republican and Democratic administrations are urging the agency not to finalize its proposal to rescind its landmark greenhouse gas endangerment finding that underpins numerous GHG standards. The trio of former administrators -- Republicans William Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman, and Democrat Gina McCarthy -- argue the proposal conflicts with EPA’s “clear” legal obligations, as well as established science and EPA’s mission. “The harms caused by greenhouse gas pollution are severe, urgent, and growing,...

Shutdown Raises Questions On Pace Of EPA’s GHG Regulatory Rollbacks

Observers are increasingly asking whether the ongoing federal government shutdown could last long enough to slow EPA’s rollbacks of greenhouse gas regulations, even as some sources are flagging factors that could blunt or eliminate such effects, including leftover funds and the possibility that key staff will be exempted from furloughs. “I can’t speak with any certainty,” one agency source says about divergent rumors about how long the agency can continue operating at relatively normal levels with such leftover funds. The...

Environmentalists Press EPA To Disclose AI Use In Vehicle, GHG Rollbacks

Environmentalists are pressing for a “detailed disclosure” by EPA of any use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its rulemaking to undo its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle standards, arguing that failure to do so violates procedural requirements and removes safeguards against error. Their call, as part of broader comments to the agency on its GHG repeal proposal, signals concern with a general EPA statement on the use of AI in rulemakings that the agency quietly posted to its...

Groups Say EPA Ignores Trillions In Harm From Ending Vehicle GHG Limits

Environmental and other groups are floating new analyses claiming that EPA’s proposed repeal of Biden-era vehicle greenhouse gas standards for vehicles ignores trillions of dollars of harms the plan would cause, part of an effort to make the case that EPA is acting arbitrarily in moving to scuttle its vehicle GHG program. The analyses are included in broader comments to the agency that claim EPA’s draft cost-benefit analysis for its plan is flawed for reasons including that it ignores the...

Industry Floats Alternatives To EPA’s GHG Risk Repeal Plan Amid Uncertainty

Automakers and truck makers are offering alternative suggestions on how EPA could amend its plan to reverse its GHG endangerment finding that they say will help ensure the immediate relief industry needs -- in formal comments that demonstrate concerns about the legal risks associated with the agency’s broader plan. Automakers, for example, are offering a “backstop” plan that could provide interim relief amid the regulatory turmoil stemming from the EPA risk repeal proposal. And truck makers are pressing EPA to...

EEI Warns EPA About Adverse Effects Of Reversing GHG Risk Finding

Investor-owned utilities are cautioning EPA about the potential fallout from removing the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and linked vehicle emissions standards -- arguing federal GHG standards play an important role in displacing federal common law suits and providing the regulatory certainty required to build new gas plants. The power sector is not regulated directly by EPA’s proposed rule, which seeks to rescind the agency’s threshold risk finding and repeal vehicle GHG standards. EPA is separately promulgating a rule that would...

Truck Makers Urge ‘Major Questions’ Attack On Some Vehicle GHG Limits

Truck and engine makers are pressing EPA to rely on the major questions doctrine, rather than scuttling its underlying greenhouse gas endangerment finding, to undo “Phase 3” truck greenhouse gas standards, citing fears that a legal strategy of relying on the GHG finding gambit is too risky to provide needed regulatory relief. The suggestion in Sept. 22 formal comments highlights broader industry fears in both the truck and auto sectors that EPA’s push to rollback vehicle GHG limits in tandem...

GOP AGs Offer Path To Scrap Mass. But Doubt Need Given GHG Risk Repeal

Over two dozen GOP attorneys general are offering a path for the Supreme Court to scrap its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling ratifying EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, though they claim this is not necessary for EPA’s proposed GHG finding repeal because the plan is consistent with the “best read” of the Clean Air Act CAA). “[L]egal developments since Massachusetts have shown that GHGs like carbon dioxide are not ‘air pollutants’ under [Clean Air Act section] 302(g),” in...

Democratic States Warn EPA’s GHG Risk Plan Flouts High Court Precedent

A coalition of Democratic cities and states led by Massachusetts and California is blasting EPA’s proposed recission of its greenhouse gas endangerment finding, arguing EPA’s justification is foreclosed by the Supreme Court, disregards “overwhelming” science and is “misguided” in seeking input on ways to ensure continued preemption of state vehicle GHG rules. The 225-page arguments are spelled out in Sept. 22 comments filed in response to EPA’s proposal to withdraw its 2009 endangerment finding that forms the basis for the...

State Coalition Charges EPA Lacks Authority To Scrap Vehicle GHG Limits

A California-led coalition of Democratic states and cities is charging that EPA’s plan to scrap all vehicle greenhouse standards ignores states’ reliance interests, exceeds limited agency authority to “revise” the standards, and cannot rely on the agency’s plan to scuttle its GHG risk finding that would be “ineffective” in undoing the basis for the standards. In Sept. 22 comments , the coalition cites $1.2 trillion in avoided climate harms under the current federal GHG program over the next three decades,...

Automakers Seek ‘Backstop’ Vehicle GHG Standards As Regulatory Hedge

The main auto sector trade group is calling on the EPA to adopt revised vehicle greenhouse gas standards as an “alternative or backstop” to the agency’s proposal to scrap its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG limits, calling such a plan “critical if motor vehicle GHG standards are retained or reinstated in some way.” The pitch in Sept. 22 comments from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation builds on the sector’s recent push for interim relief from the standards...

Comments Show High Stakes Legal Fight Over EPA’s GHG Finding Repeal

Emerging public comments are underscoring the agency’s high stakes gamble -- pinned largely to threshold Clean Air Act (CAA) legal arguments but also claiming science and technology rationales -- in its bid to scrap its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG rules. It is a “high-risk, high-reward endeavor” for the Trump EPA’s deregulatory push, said Boyden Gray attorney Michael Buschbacher, alluding during remarks at a Sept. 17 American Enterprise Institute forum to the finding’s role in justifying GHG...

NRDC Makes Late Bid To Extend GHG Comment Period, Citing DOE Report

Environmentalists are making an 11th-hour request to extend the comment deadline for EPA’s sweeping proposal to rescind its greenhouse gas endangerment finding, arguing that mounting substantive and procedural concerns regarding the Department of Energy (DOE) report the agency is using to downplay greenhouse gas risks justify such a request. “In its haste to push through rollbacks of federal climate regulations, EPA has carried out an extremely rushed and slipshod rulemaking process,” the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) writes in a...

GHG Risk Repeal ‘Crystalizes’ Broader Effort To Shrink EPA, Goffman Says

EPA’s proposal to rescind its landmark greenhouse gas endangerment finding is offering a clear window into the Trump administration’s broader campaign to shrink the size and scope of the agency, according to Biden EPA air chief Joe Goffman, who was a key architect of the 2009 finding. The July 29 proposal “is both an action in and of itself, but also an action that crystalizes, I think for all to see, the entire project they’re undertaking,” which is to dramatically...

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