EPA did an unlawful end run around public notice requirements in recently giving two leading steel manufacturers a compliance break, environmental groups allege in urging a federal court to swiftly reject it.
By tapping a rarely used procedural ploy known as an “interim final rule” to provide the compliance extension, EPA violated the Clean Air Act’s requirements to first give the public a heads-up and the opportunity to weigh in, the Clean Air Council and four other organizations said in a motion filed Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
They asked the court to either throw out or stay the interim rule, which gives Cleveland-Cliffs and U.S. Steel until April 2027 to meet stricter hazardous air pollutant limits that had been scheduled to take effect this year and 2026.
The case could provide an early test of the Trump administration’s reliance on interim final rules at EPA as part of a broader strategy to benefit industry. It’s a step that’s generally supposed to be reserved for emergencies, but just this month, the agency has also taken that route in granting the aerosol spray paint industry and manufacturers of coke, a distilled form of coal, similar compliance extensions.
