EPA has decided to retain its plan to combine a pending waiver allowing year-round sales of 15-percent ethanol fuel (E15) with a measure to overhaul the renewable fuel standard (RFS) credit market despite pressure from the biofuels industry to bifurcate the policies, following objections to separating them from Senate oil sector supporters.
EPA claims the lawsuit should be dismissed because it challenges a policy memo and not a final agency action, but the petitioners counter that the memo is a binding action subject to judicial review.
EPA air chief Bill Wehrum is downplaying the recent government shutdown's effect on the agency's ability to finish its replacement greenhouse gas rule for existing power plants, though the agency is still acknowledging the shutdown caused some slowdown in issuing a rule originally slated for sometime in March.
Conservative and free-market groups that have long urged EPA to repeal its finding that greenhouse gases are a public endangerment -- because they say that is the only way to prevent the agency from having to regulate GHGs -- are backing away from that stance and now say it may be good enough for EPA to not strictly enforce the finding.
EPA is facing broad criticism from environmentalists on its proposal to give areas around the country an additional year to attain a 2008 federal ozone standard and avoid a “bump-up” to more stringent emissions control requirements, with critics saying the areas’ ozone problems are so bad they do not justify the extensions.
The White House appears to still be on track to finalizing its plan to freeze light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas and fuel economy rules, despite automakers' stated preference against such a rollback in favor of a modest annual rate of improvement in vehicles.
Having failed to receive a response from EPA, House Democrats are reiterating an oversight request they made on several major climate rollbacks nearly three months ago.
Environmentalists are suing EPA over its refusal to require battery storage as the best available control technology (BACT) for reducing emissions at a gas-fired power plant.
Former Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) authored or helped craft many of the nation's major environmental laws during his extended tenure at the helm of the Energy & Commerce Committee.
Progressive lawmakers are formally launching a long political push to enact a “Green New Deal,” (GND) with backers of the effort projecting unity among left-leaning groups by combining an aggressive push for “zero-emissions” energy with calls to reverse a slide in the fortunes of blue-collar workers.