The Trump administration has settled on its first Clean Air Act rule for a possible rollback: a package of regulations strengthened last year to better head off accidents at thousands of facilities that use or store dangerous chemicals.
In a filing Thursday morning, agency attorneys asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to freeze proceedings in legal challenges to those Biden-era regulations while agency staff get to work on a replacement.
The filing cites only the “new administration’s policy priorities” as grounds for undertaking the new rulemaking and does not state an objective. But “we can only assume that it means a rollback or weakening” of the regulations, Adam Kron, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, said in an interview.
Assuming the court agrees to EPA’s bid, the agency’s goal is to publish the replacement rule by late next year, Steven Cook, deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Land and Emergency Management, wrote in an accompanying declaration. The public will have the chance to weigh in on a draft version, Cook indicated.
