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January 27-February 2, 2024
In this week's issue:
- Senate Confirms Joseph Goffman as EPA Assistant Administrator for Air (January 31, 2024)
- OMB Completes Interagency Review of PM NAAQS Reconsideration; EPA Administrator Expected to Sign Final Regulatory Decision “Shortly” (February 2, 2024)
- EPA Responds to NACAA's Request for Additional Time to Comment on Draft New Exceptional Events Implementation Tools (January 30, 2024)
- EPA Finalizes Asset Management Framework for Air Quality Monitoring in Response to GAO Recommendation (January 25, 2024)
- DOE Sets Modest Efficiency Standards for Stoves (January 30, 2024)
- Citing Climate Concerns, Administration “Pauses” New LNG Terminal Approvals (January 26, 2024)
This Week in Review
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After three years in an acting or effective capacity in the role, the U.S. Senate has confirmed Joseph Goffman to be EPA’s Assistant Administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation. Goffman has led the office since January 2021 and was formally nominated in March 2022 and renominated on January 23, 2023. All Democratic Senators voted for the nomination except Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) who voted with Republicans in opposition, but the absence of Sen. John Barasso (R-WY) meant that the final vote was 50-49. Goffman has served since 1990 in various roles at EPA and the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, as well as being executive director of the Environmental & Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School prior to rejoining EPA in 2021. He holds B.A. and J.D. degrees from Yale University.
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As of this morning (February 2, 2024), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has discharged from the list of federal regulations undergoing interagency review EPA’s final decision on the reconsideration of the particulate matter (PM) National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), clearing the rule for signature by EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. In a motion filed Tuesday (January 30, 2024) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit EPA moved to extend, again, until February 13, 2024, abeyance of consolidated cases challenging EPA’s December 18, 2020, decision to retain, without revision, the existing PM NAAQS that were established in 2015. Counsel for EPA wrote in this week’s motion that “EPA continues to expect that the rule will complete the inter-agency review process through the Office of Management and Budget imminently and the Administrator will sign the rule shortly thereafter. Given that, EPA requests that the Court extend the abeyance by two weeks, until February 13, 2024.” In 2021, when EPA, under a new Administration, announced that it would reconsider the 2020 PM NAAQS decision, the agency moved to hold the cases in abeyance until March 2023, pending completion of the reconsideration. EPA subsequently moved several times for extensions to the abeyance; the last one expired on January 30, 2024. Tuesday’s motion for another extension corrects a previous version to reflect that 1) health and environmental petitioners and movant-intervenors in this case authorized EPA to report that they would oppose the motion unless the final rule was signed by January 30 and “intend to file a timely response to the motion, including as appropriate a cross-motion to lift the abeyance”; 2) state petitioners and petitioner Center for Biological Diversity authorized EPA to report that they reserve their right to file a response to EPA’s motion; and 3) respondent-intervenors authorized EPA to report that they do not oppose the requested extension.
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Scott Mathias, Director of the EPA Office of Air and Radiation’s (OAR) Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards’ Air Quality Policy Division, responded to NACAA’s January 25, 2024, letter requesting a 30-day extension to the February 2, 2024, deadline for commenting on EPA’s draft new exceptional events (EE) implementation tools (see related article in the January 20-26, 2024, Washington, Update). The letter was sent to Joe Goffman, Assistant Administrator for EPA OAR, and the agency’s non-regulatory docket for EE implementation tools and materials (EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0586). Although EPA did not grant the request for additional time Scott assures NACAA in his response that the agency will continue to consider feedback provided after February 2, 2024. In his email to Wayne Nastri (Los Angeles, CA) and Gail Good (WI), Co-Chairs of the NACAA Criteria Pollutants Committee, Scott writes, “I am responding on behalf of the Office of Air and Radiation to NACAA’s request for an extension to the informal comment period on the posted, draft exceptional events implementation tools (e.g., web-based data visualization tools and Tiering document for Wildland fires influencing PM concentrations). We have reviewed NAACA’s request and we are declining your specific request. In retaining the February 2, 2024, closing date for the informal, non-regulatory comment period, EPA has carefully considered, and tried to balance, the need for public engagement and the need to incorporate any feedback into final tools for air agency use in time for the National Exceptional Events Implementation Workshop in St. Louis, Missouri on February, 27-29, 2024. However, we intend to consider any feedback received after February 2, 2024, in future refinements to the recently shared tools or to other exceptional events implementation materials. This would include any feedback received at the upcoming Workshop and additional feedback received in our non-regulatory docket. Please know that we are aware of the resource constraints of your NACAA members, and, where we can, we do try to take this into account. Given EPA’s constraints here the time offered was the best that we could do. We thank NACAA members for their interest in the exceptional events program and process, and we welcome feedback from our co-regulators at any time.”
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https://www.regulations.gov/search?filter=EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0586
EPA has finalized an “asset management framework” for state, local and tribal air monitoring agencies. The framework is an inventory management tool focused on physical assets that comprise the national ambient air monitoring network. The release of this framework responds to one of two key recommendations in a November 2020 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report titled Air Pollution: Opportunities to Better Sustain and Modernize the National Air Quality Monitoring System. Its release was announced via a memorandum from Chet Wayland, Director of EPA’s Air Quality Analysis Division, to the EPA Regional Air Division Directors. The framework details specific data that state and local monitoring agencies will be expected to collect and include in annual asset management reports. The reports are to be submitted concurrently with air agencies’ Air Monitoring Network Plans, which are due on July 1 of each year. EPA has developed a spreadsheet template for state, local and tribal agencies to populate and submit as their annual asset management report. The spreadsheet includes the following 13 data fields: applicability year; asset owner; state; asset type; asset status; asset manufacturer; asset model; asset serial ID; asset acquisition date; asset purchase price; current condition; asset agency ID (optional); and agency comment (optional). “Because the air monitoring asset management framework is a new process, the EPA Regional Offices will work with air agencies on timing and reporting for their first submission in July 2024,” the memorandum states. Further, “EPA anticipates reviewing the asset management framework as needed to improve the processes, maximize usefulness, or add requirements after the first year of implementation.” The other key recommendation in the November 2020 GAO report was for EPA to develop and make public an air quality monitoring modernization plan. EPA intends to address this recommendation in second document, which is currently under development.
For further information: https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/Implementing-an-AQ-Monitoring-Asset-Management-Framework-1-25-24.pdf
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has finalized performance standards for the efficiency of new stoves that use natural gas and electricity. The standards, which come into effect in 2028, will affect 3 percent of new gas stoves and 23 percent of new electric stoves, according to the DOE. Stoves that consume 1,770 thousand British thermal units (kBtu) per year of gas will be permitted in the final rule, whereas the proposed rule would have set a 1,204-kBtu compliance threshold. DOE was legally required by court decree to release the regulation by the end of January. In a press release, DOE said that it “expects the standards to decrease harmful carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 4 million metric tons cumulatively over 30 years — an amount roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions associated with the energy use of 500,000 households”.
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The Biden Administration has announced that it will be pausing new approvals by DOE for export terminals of liquified natural gas (LNG) while the Department studies “an evolving understanding of the market need for LNG, the long-term supply of LNG and the perilous impacts of methane on our planet”, and takes public comment. The United States became the world’s largest exporter of LNG in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused European governments to shift to that resource and away from pipeline gas produced by Russia, and new planned projects seek to roughly double U.S. export capacity. Four current projects in Texas and Louisiana with export approvals pending at the DOE would be among those affected by the pause, including Sempra Infrastructure, Commonwealth LNG and potentially Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) project in Louisiana, which would be the nation’s largest. DOE said the pause applies to all current and future pending applications until the review is complete, and analysts have said that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the natural gas that would be fed through terminals under consideration would increase global GHG emissions to 704 million tons of CO2 equivalent, roughly 17% of current U.S. annual emissions.
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