Litigation

EPA is notifying a federal appeals court that it intends to issue in May a long-delayed federal plan implementing landfill methane limits in the vast majority of states, and the agency is also asking that oral arguments scheduled for Feb. 22 over a Trump EPA rule delaying the deadlines for the federal plan be postponed due to the pending action.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has requested that a federal appeals court suspend litigation filed by California and others over the Trump EPA’s efforts to prohibit state vehicle greenhouse gas programs that are more stringent than federal rules, in order to allow the Biden administration to reconsider the policy.

One of the first legal settlements the Biden Justice Department (DOJ) has signed includes a supplemental environmental project (SEP), a popular tool that had long enjoyed bipartisan support until the Trump administration largely banned them last year, signaling a potential reversal of that ban.

Refiners and biofuels groups are sparring in legal briefs over whether the Trump EPA’s renewable fuel standard (RFS) production goals for 2020 were too low or too high, in a case that poses significant implications for the Biden administration’s approach to setting RFS volumes for future compliance years.