Energy

Anne Idsal, EPA’s acting Office of Air & Radiation chief, is detailing an ambitious deregulatory agenda for the coming years including finalizing rollbacks of major Obama-era rules and issuing policies to ease compliance mandates for states and industry, amid observers’ doubts over the content of, and justification for, some of the efforts.

At least two judges on a federal appeals court panel appeared skeptical of environmentalists’ arguments that Interior Department officials violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by not adequately assessing climate change impacts of the nation’s first offshore drilling project in federal Arctic waters.

EPA critics are casting newly unveiled revisions to water and waste rules for coal-fired power plants as part of a broad agenda to prioritize the coal industry over protecting human health and the environment, arguing that the agency is fast-tracking deregulatory policies for the sectors despite court orders to strengthen other elements of the regulations.

Environmental and public health groups are waging 11th-hour efforts to block EPA’s final rule rolling back the Obama-era utility mercury and air toxics standards (MATS), including urging the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to kill the rule and pressing Congress to block the rollback in upcoming spending legislation.