December 16-22, 2023
In this week's issue:
- NACAA Letter to President Calls for Action on PM NAAQS Standards (December 21, 2023)
- Supreme Court Will Hear Good Neighbor Case, Seeks Arguments From Parties (December 19, 2021)
- House Bill to Prevent Proposed Revisions to Air Emissions Reporting Requirements is Introduced (December 14, 2023)
- EPA 2023 Automotive Trends Report Finds Emissions Reductions, Electric Transition Underway (December 20, 2023)
- Canada To Eliminate Sales Of New Gasoline Passenger Vehicles By 2035 (December 19, 2023)
- Cummins Settles With DOJ, California, After Installing Defeat Devices on Nearly 1 Million Dodge Pickup Trucks (December 22, 2023)
- Biden Administration Releases $600 Million for EJ Hubs (December 19, 2023)
- NACAA, EPA, AAPCA Seek Speakers for 2024 National Air Quality Conference (December 20, 2023)
This Week in Review
NACAA has sent a letter to the White House calling for EPA to swiftly finalize its review of the NAAQS for PM, which has been transmitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review. The letter does not call for a specific level for the NAAQS to be set at, but notes that since 2021, NACAA has encouraged EPA’s reconsideration of the agency’s December 18, 2020, final decision to retain, without revision, the 2012 PM NAAQS. The letter acknowledges challenges that new implementation responsibilities could impose on our agencies without additional resources to accomplish them, as outlined in NACAA’s March 28, 2023, comments on EPA’s January 27, 2023, proposed rule, Reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter (88 Fed. Reg. 5558, EPA Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2015-0072). However, citing economic and public health data drawn following previous NAAQS updates, the letter says that “Based on decades of experience, NACAA has confidence that even with more protective standards the economy will continue to grow as air quality and public health improve.”
For further information:
https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/NACAA-PM-NAAQS-Letter-to-President-Biden-12_21_2023.pdf
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The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral argument early next year over calls from three states and industry to stay EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP), which originally was slated to apply to 23 states but which has been stayed in 12 of those states in lower courts. The U.S. Supreme Court’s December 20, 2023 order consolidates four cases under and with a petition for a national stay brought by Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia in Ohio, et al. v. EPA, et al., (USCA Case No. 23-1183), and seeks one hour of argument in its February 2024 session. The GNP requires optimized use of existing emissions controls to reduce NOx emissions from power plants in 2023 followed by steeper NOx cuts in 2026. Petitioners allege that seven regional appeals court decision staying a number of state SIP disapprovals mean that the national program is no longer viable. The U.S. Supreme Court order calls for petitioners to “be prepared to address, among other issues related to the challenge based on the SIP disapprovals, whether the emissions controls imposed by the Rule are reasonable regardless of the number of States subject to the Rule.” Litigation over the rule is ongoing in eight appeals courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, none of which have yet ruled on the merits of the GNP or EPA’s underlying decisions to disapprove interstate SIPs.
For further information:
https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/SCOTUS-GNP-epa2023_2288.pdf
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https://www.epa.gov/Cross-State-Air-Pollution/good-neighbor-plan-2015-ozone-naaqs
A bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would prohibit EPA from finalizing, implementing or enforcing the revised Air Emission Reporting Requirements (AERR), which EPA proposed on August 9, 2023. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) introduced H.R. 6813, also titled the “Rein in the EPA Act,” and is joined by an additional 20 other Republican cosponsors. According to Good, the bill is intended to protect companies, especially small businesses from the proposed AERR’s “unduly burdensome compliance requirements” and additional mandates “designed to push a radical climate agenda.” The proposed updates to the AERR call for expanding EPA’s collection of certain emissions information, including adding hazardous air pollutants to the list of substances for which emissions data must be submitted.
For further information:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6813?s=2&r=34
EPA has released its annual Automotive Trends Report for 2023. It reports that model year (MY) 2022 vehicle fuel economy reached a record high while emission levels dropped to record low levels. Since MY 2004, CO2 emissions have decreased 27 percent, and fuel economy has increased 35 percent. The report also shows that through the MY 2022 reporting period, all 14 large manufacturers are in compliance with the light-duty greenhouse gas program requirements. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles helped reduce the overall average CO2 emissions from the MY 2022 fleet by 22 grams per mile and improved fuel economy by 1.2 miles per gallon in MY 2022. The report says that In MY 2022, the combined category of electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles increased from 4% of production in MY 2021 to 7% of production in MY 2022 and are projected to reach 12% of production in MY 2023.
For further information:
https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/download-automotive-trends-report#Full%20Report
Canada has released its final Electric Vehicle Availability Standard regulations mandating that all passenger cars, SUVs, crossovers and light trucks sold by 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). Under the regulations, ZEVs must make up at least 20% of all cars sold by 2026 and at least 60% by 2030. ZEVs represented 12.1% of Canadian new vehicle sales in the third quarter of 2023. Transportation accounts for about 22% of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.
For further information:
Engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. has reached an agreement in principle with the United States and State of California to pay a $1.675 billion penalty to settle Clean Air Act violations after installing emissions defeat devices on 960,000 Dodge Ram pickup trucks. The company allegedly installed defeat devices on 630,000 model year 2013 to 2019 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines. The company also allegedly installed undisclosed auxiliary emission control devices on 330,000 model year 2019 to 2023 RAM 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines. The penalty would be the largest ever under the Clean Air Act and the second largest ever environmental penalty in the United States.
For further information:
The White House has announced that it has given $600 million to 11 selected grantmakers under EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, created by the Inflation Reduction Act. These organizations will act as funding hubs to distribute thousands of subgrants to smaller community groups to support environmental justice projects across the country. Community based subgrants could fund local clean ups, local emergency preparedness and disaster resilience programs, workforce development programs reducing greenhouse gas emissions, fenceline and community air quality monitoring projects, healthy homes programs and other projects. Nine organizations will receive $50 million each to serve as Regional Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers, including Health Resources in Action, Massachusetts (EPA Region 1); Fordham University, New York (EPA Region 2); Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Inc., Maryland (EPA Region 3); Research Triangle Institute, North Carolina (EPA Region 4, which will receive $100 million and also serve as the national resource hub); The Minneapolis Foundation, Minnesota (EPA Region 5); Texas Southern University, Texas (EPA Region 6); JSI Research and Training Institute, Inc., Colorado (EPA Region 8); Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), Inc., California (EPA Region 9); and Philanthropy Northwest, Washington (EPA Region 10). The Institute For Sustainable Communities, Vermont, and Climate Justice Alliance, California, will also receiver funding to be regional funding hubs. These Grantmakers are expected to begin opening competitions and awarding subgrants by summer 2024, working with EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and design the application process, stand up tracking systems and award environmental justice subgrants.
For further information:
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Working with EPA and the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA), NACAA will co-host the 2024 National Air Quality Conference (NAQC) at EPA’s Research Triangle Park facility in North Carolina, and online, from March 18 – 21, 2024. The goal of the NAQC is to educate participants about the Air Quality Index (AQI), air quality forecasting and mapping, changes and updates to the AirNow program, the intersection between air quality and public health, and innovative federal, state, local, tribal outreach programs The organizers are seeking to identify speakers to make presentations in two tracks: an “Air Quality Forecasting, Data, Modeling, & Visualization” Track, and a “Communicating Air Quality Track”. State and local agencies are invited to submit a short abstract on a relevant topic that you would like to present, either as part of a panel session or as a poster display, to NAQC@epa.gov by January 26th, 2024.
For further information:
https://www.airnow.gov/naqc-2024/
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https://www.airnow.gov/naqc-2024-call-for-speakers-and-posters/