Enviros target Trump-era Clean Air Act permitting rule

By Sean Reilly | 07/03/2024 01:46 PM EDT

Over 150 groups urged EPA to toss the industrial air permitting policy rather than finalize a proposal to bolster oversight of emissions accounting.

Emissions spew from a large stack at the coal fired Brandon Shores power plant.

Emissions spew from a large stack at the coal-fired Brandon Shores power plant on March 9, 2018, in Baltimore. Environmental groups are pushing EPA to get rid of a Trump-era industrial air permitting policy. Mark Wilson/AFP via Getty Images

Environmental and community groups are pressing EPA to scrap a Trump-era industrial air permitting policy.

The agency is due to issue a rule aimed at bolstering oversight of a program that determines when expanding facilities, like manufacturing plants, require additional air pollution controls.

“To prevent increased air pollution that harms public health, we call on EPA to rescind the Project Emissions Accounting Rule,” the Southern Environmental Law Center and more than 150 other organizations wrote in comments filed just before Tuesday’s deadline for written feedback on the proposed changes.

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Under that draft published in May, the agency would revisit a 2020 change to the thresholds for deciding whether a planned plant expansion or other upgrade warrants scrutiny under the New Source Review program, which aims to protect communities from increases in industrial air emissions.

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