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January 14-20, 2023
In this week's issue:
- NACAA Letters to EPA Offer Input and Recommendations for IRA (January 18, 2023)
- NACAA Supports EPA’s Proposed Aircraft Lead Endangerment Finding (January 17, 2023)
- House Appropriations Ranking Member Seeks Input on Proposed FY 2024 Federal Spending Cap (January 29, 2023)
- Legal Challenge to EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding Is Untimely and Meritless, Public Interest Groups Argue (January 17, 2023)
- EPA Extends Public Comment Period on Proposed NSPS Amendments for Secondary Lead Smelters (January 17, 2023)
- Researchers Find Steep Deficits In Carbon Removal Capacity To Meet Climate Targets (January 19, 2023)
- EPA Seeks Nominations for Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (January 17, 2023)
This Week in Review
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NACAA has sent two letters to EPA NACAA has written two letters to EPA in response to its Requests for Information about the implementation of the August 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). EPA issued six Requests for Information (RFIs) on November 9, 2022 regarding the deployment of funds and implementation of programs related to IRA. NACAA’s letters offer EPA insights about two of these RFIs: the IRA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (IRA Section 60114) and its Air Pollution Reduction provisions (IRA Sections 60105 and 60106). These letters follow up on a letter NACAA sent EPA Administrator Michael Regan on October 5, 2022, which also offered recommendations about IRA implementation. The letters urge EPA to prioritize and value the comments that will be submitted by our individual member agencies, and to consider the direct and indirect effects of implementation on the other work done by these agencies. The letters remind EPA that new programs will need new resources, and that as much funding as is administratively feasible should go to clean air agencies, which have tremendous needs but also the expertise to accomplish the work. In addition to funding and staffing needs, NACAA’s letter on the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants articulates technical assistance needs for agencies and other stakeholders, calls for clear and up-front enumeration of expectations for metrics, reporting, and other performance requirements, and lays out recommendations for interagency coordination and for timing. In the letter addressing Air Pollution Reduction funding included in IRA, NACAA makes recommendations for the implementation of programs on fenceline and ambient monitoring, sensors, woodstove emissions, air pollution at schools, and makes recommendations about “Clean Air Act Grants” provisions included in IRA.
For further information:
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https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/NACAA-IRA-letter-to-EPA-10_5_22-1.pdf
NACAA submitted comments to EPA supporting the agency’s “Proposed Finding That Lead Emissions from Aircraft Engines That Operate on Leaded Fuel Cause or Contribute to Air Pollution That May Reasonably Be Anticipated To Endanger Public Health and Welfare,” (87 Fed. Reg. 62,753, October 17, 2022). In this action, the EPA Administrator proposes to find “that lead air pollution may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare within the meaning of section 231(a) of the Clean Air Act” and, further, “that engine emissions of lead from certain aircraft cause or contribute to the lead air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare under section 231(a) of the Clean Air Act.” The basis of these proposed findings is the comprehensive review and consideration by agency experts of extensive scientific evidence that has been accrued over decades and peer-reviewed by EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, as described in the action. Among other things, EPA reiterates in the proposal its previous conclusion that “it is clear that lead exposure in childhood presents a risk; further, there is no evidence of a threshold below which there are no harmful effects on cognition from lead exposure.’’ The Centers for Disease Control confirm this: “Protecting children from exposure to lead is important to lifelong good health. No safe blood lead level in children has been identified. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to negatively affect a child’s intelligence, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.” Covered aircraft under this proposal are any aircraft capable of using leaded aviation gasoline. The majority of these covered aircraft are piston-engine powered, most typically small aircraft that carry two to ten passengers, which represent the largest single source of lead emissions into the air in the U.S. In 2008, piston-engine aircraft contributed 59 percent of total U.S. lead emissions into the air; by 2017, the contribution climbed to 70 percent because of decreasing emissions from other ambient lead sources. As EPA notes, it is not proposing aircraft lead emission standards in this action. Should the agency finalize these findings, it would then move forward to propose and take comment on emission standards under Clean Air Act section 231.
For further information:
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, has written to the heads of federal departments and agencies, including EPA Administrator Michael Regan, to ask how a possible spending cap would affect their agency’s functions. Rep. DeLauro, who was Chair of the House Appropriations Committee until the new Congress began earlier this month, noted that a reported plan by the majority party – not yet publicly released – would cap spending in FY 2024 at FY 2022 levels. This would constitute a funding cut, in many cases. For example, FY 2023 funding for EPA is $10.13 billion and Section 103/105 grants to state and local air quality agencies are $249 million, while in FY 2022 EPA’s budget was $9.56 billion and Section 103/105 grants were $ 231.4 million. DeLauro’s letter highlighted the importance of Members of Congress understanding the possible impacts of such funding cuts. Among the questions in the letter was “How will these cuts affect our environment and our ability to combat climate change?” DeLauro has requested a response from agency heads by February 3, 2023.
For further information:
In a respondent-intervenor brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, public health and environmental organizations argue that groups challenging EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding lack standing to sue, and that in any event, their suit is untimely and meritless. The petitioners in this case are Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council and the FAIR Energy Foundation, both of which are pro-fossil fuel groups. They are challenging EPA’s denial of their petition to reconsider its 2009 finding that “elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare of current and future U.S. generations.” The petitioners claim that “climate policy is a far greater threat to human health and welfare than human-caused climate change”; that restraints on fossil fuels lead to “crippling increases in energy costs and economic devastation”; and that “there is no chance that U.S. climate policy will have any measurable effect on climate whatsoever.” In their opening brief, they asserted that the Endangerment Finding rests on “a pyramid of fraud and logistical fallacies” and argued that their suit is timely because it is based on data and analyses that “[came] to light well after the Endangerment Finding was finalized.” EPA argued in its response brief that the groups lack standing to sue, and regardless, its denial of their petitions was well justified and supported by law. The public interest organizations supporting EPA reiterate these arguments in their brief. They assert that the Petitioners lack standing to sue because their “bald and speculative” claims of future injury are unsupported. In any event, they argue, the petitioners have failed to establish any basis for mandatory administrative reconsideration because the grounds on which they rely arose well after the 60-day period following the finalization of the Endangerment Finding, and EPA properly denied their petition in any event. The respondent-intervenors are the Environmental Defense Fund, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Appalachian Mountain Club, Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin, National Parks Conservation Association and Natural Resources Council of Maine.
For further information: https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/Concerned-Household-Elec.-v.-EPA-Resp-Intervenors-Corr.-Brief-1-18-23.pdf (corrected) brief of Respondent-Intervenor Public Interest Organizations filed January 18, 2023); https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/Concerned-Household-Elec.-v.-EPA-EPA-brief-12-20-22.pdf (EPA brief filed December 20, 2022); https://www.4cleanair.org/wp-content/uploads/Concerned-Household-Elec.-v.-EPA-Petitioners-Brief-10-14-22.pdf (Petitioners’ opening brief filed October 14, 2022)
EPA announced in the Federal Register (88 Fed. Reg. 2563) that it is extending by 15 days the public comment period on its proposed rule to amend the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for secondary lead smelters (facilities that recycle lead-bearing scrap material, typically lead acid batteries, into elemental lead or lead alloys). Published on December 1 (87 Fed. Reg. 73,708), the proposed amendments include updates to the existing NSPS subpart for the source category (subpart L), as well as a new subpart La that applies to sources that begin construction, reconstruction or modification after December 1, 2022. For the existing subpart L, EPA is proposing to revise the definitions of blast furnace, reverberatory furnace, and pot furnace to more closely align with equivalent definitions in the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for secondary lead smelting. The proposal also incorporates revised monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting requirements that are more consistent with the NESHAP. The new proposed subpart La includes updated particulate matter (PM) and opacity limits that apply at all times, including during periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction. It also includes proposed initial and periodic PM and opacity performance testing, as well as the same equipment definitions, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements proposed for the subpart L. EPA’s decision to extend the public comment period comes in response to a request letter from the Association of Battery Recyclers. Comments on the proposed rule are now due on February 1, 2023.
For further information: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-01-17/pdf/2023-00669.pdf and https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2022-12-01/pdf/2022-25586.pdf
A team of team of researchers from Oxford University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and other research institutions in Europe have investigated the need for Carbon Direct Removal (CDR) and concluded that “To limit warming to 2°C or lower, we need to accelerate emissions reductions…the findings of this report are clear: we also need to increase carbon removal, by restoring and enhancing ecosystems and rapidly scaling up new CDR methods.” Most net-zero commitments by organizations, companies, and governments rely implicitly on carbon removal, and to date this has mostly been done by planting trees and managing soils. However, the report finds that virtually all pathways to meeting these targets will require a dramatic ramp-up of new CDR technologies, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), biochar, enhanced rock weathering and direct air capture with carbon capture and storage (DACCS). Currently, these make up approximately 0.1% of CDR, and the report finds that these CDR technologies need to grow by a factor of 1,300 on average by 2050. Moreover, they find that while attention to, and advancement of, these technologies has grown rapidly since 2020, the policy underpinnings that will enable the needed scale-up is largely missing.
For further information:
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EPA has requested nominations for appointments to fill vacancies on the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC), which provides advice and recommendations on policy and technical matters related to implementation of the Clean Air Act. EPA seeks nominations from a diverse range of candidates, including state, local and tribal agencies; academia; industry; non-governmental/environmental organizations; community organizations; unions; trade associations, utilities; lawyers; and consultants. The EPA Administrator appoints members for two-year terms, with the possibility of reappointment. CAAAC meets approximately twice each year and the expected workload is five to ten hours per month. The deadline for nominations is March 30, 2023 and EPA expects to fill the vacancies by August 2023.
For further information:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-01-17/pdf/2023-00739.pdf