EPA and environmental groups have agreed to delay a major air quality rulemaking until 2029 — when President Donald Trump will be out of office.
The Biden administration in 2024 struck a deal with environmentalists for a timeline to review and potentially revise the standard by the end of 2028. That came after green groups sued EPA for missing a statutory deadline to act on the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for nitrogen oxides, which are emitted from burning fossil fuels.
But that decision will now be kicked to the following year, according to a modified consent decree filed Thursday with a federal court in California.
“Frankly, we didn’t think this administration was going to do anything responsible with the primary NOx NAAQS,” Ryan Maher, a staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an interview. “We figured it was better to hope for a more favorable future administration that might be more receptive to protecting public health with the NAAQS review, so that’s why we pushed the proposed and final deadline.”
