Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 18, 2024

Last week, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized updated regulations for certain facilities that emit ethylene oxide (EtO), a colorless, cancer-causing gas. For the first time, the government will regulate fugitive or “unintended” emissions and require permanent total enclosure of sterilization operations.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 1, 2024

This decision , reached with a 6-3 majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts, marks a significant shift in administrative law and has profound implications for environmental regulations and climate accountability. Successful court cases could limit the scope of future regulations. Worse, agencies may decide not to even try.

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Legal Planet

JULY 25, 2022

Earlier this year, a team of economists published a retrospective paper on the Clean Air Act. Some of the findings are not surprises: stricter regulations actually do result in improved air quality. Many people identify that discipline with cost-benefit analysis and assume that economists are opposed to regulation.

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Law and Environment

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Earlier this month, Judge William Young dismissed for lack of standing claims brought by the Conservation Law Foundation alleging that bus companies violated anti-idling regulations. The post Establishing Standing in Citizen Suits Under the Clean Air Act: Breathing Polluted Air May Not Suffice first appeared on Law and the Environment.

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Legal Planet

APRIL 3, 2023

EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA) A. Nuclear power regulation D. FERC pipeline regulation (natural gas and hydrogen). California authority to regulate new vehicles D. Administrative law questions, including the major questions doctrine. Social Cost of Carbon D.

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PA Environment Daily

OCTOBER 31, 2024

On October 23, 2024, the Clean Air Council and the Environment Integrity Project filed a notice of intent to sue the Shell Petrochemical Plant in Beaver County for emitting particulate matter (PM 2.5) and nitrogen oxides in violation of the federal Clean Air Act, the state Air Pollution Control Act and the plant's permit. "As

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Legal Planet

DECEMBER 9, 2021

Here are the options going forward for regulating existing power plants. Switch to another legal basis for regulation. The Clean Power Plan was based on section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. At best, however, EPA regulation will only be one part of the package. Download as PDF.

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Legal Planet

AUGUST 26, 2021

The case involved the lynchpin of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s power to set national air quality standards. The Court then held that greenhouse gases are covered by the Clean Air Act as a type of air pollutant. Among other things, the Clean Air Act gives federal protection to wetlands.

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Clean Air Act Endangered Species Act Regulations Air Pollution 246

PA Environment Daily

MARCH 28, 2025

On March 24, the US Environmental Protection Agency posted information on how industries regulated under a variety of federal Clean Air Act programs could obtain Presidential Exemptions from those requirements. Please: Use Presidential Exemption: [Name of Regulation]: [Facility(ies) Name] as the subject of the request.

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Law and Environment

AUGUST 18, 2023

In rejecting Montana’s SIP, EPA repeatedly pointed to Montana’s failure to comply with EPA’s guidelines for determining Best Available Retrofit Technology, even though the guidelines were not enforceable regulations. Congress required in the Clean Air Act that EPA develop guidelines for determining BART.

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Legal Planet

OCTOBER 10, 2023

The decline probably wasn’t due to environmental regulation. The passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act and its major 1990 Amendments don’t show up at all in a graph of coal use. Coal began to really plunge in 2012, three years before Obama’s Clean Power Plan was issued. Download as PDF

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 1, 2022

That’s because the case, which was about the nature and scope of EPA authority in regulating carbon emissions from existing power plants, turned on a rule that does not exist. Because while this decision does still recognize EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it simultaneously sharply curtails the agency’s ability to do so.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

DECEMBER 1, 2022

California has a longstanding leadership role on transportation pollution, and the Clean Air Act grants the state the right to set strong vehicle emissions standards. Over 10,000 UCS supporters chimed in with EPA in support of granting California’s ability to enforce its truck regulations. Washington.

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Legal Planet

JULY 11, 2024

Thus, “the holdings of those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—in­cluding the Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are still subject to statutory stare decisis [Latin for standing by past decisions] despite our change interpretive methodology.”

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Union of Concerned Scientists

JUNE 1, 2022

And as EPA moves forward with its own proposal to finally strengthen truck pollution regulations, industry has been waging an all-out war on those, too. This fight by industry to delay, obstruct, and otherwise thwart stronger regulation has devastating consequences. Image: Freightliner ).

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Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 20, 2023

Multiple lines of analysis make clear that regardless of how cheap wind and solar power get, without directly addressing pollution from coal and gas plants, the country’s clean energy transition will not happen fast enough. Section 111 of the Clean Air Act constrains how EPA sets standards—but gives states wide latitude in implementation.

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Clean Air Act Fossil Fuels Carbon Emissions Clean Energy 246

Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 9, 2024

When facilities emit less pollution, their regulations require less specific record-keeping and monitoring. How stringently facilities are monitored should be based on science and on the impacts on the people who live nearby—not by a judge’s ideological viewpoint on regulation.

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Toxic Substances Control Act Air Pollution Regulations Clean Air Act 317

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

We also estimated that EtO emissions contributed to more than 80 percent of the cancer risk attributable to toxic air pollution around the facility. Even more, not only was this facility emitting high levels of EtO, but it was also violating the federal Clean Air Act (CAA).

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Air Pollution Clean Air Act Regulations 2024 306

Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates emissions of EtO, yet the agency is years behind on updating standards and control requirements, despite mounting evidence of the harm of long-term EtO exposure. A decade overdue , EPA is finalizing updated regulations for commercial sterilizers now.

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Legal Planet

JULY 2, 2024

If a regulation was upheld in the Chevron era, that decision remains valid statutory precedent. ” This actually pretty typical language in environmental statutes,, such as section 202 of the Clean Air Act, which EPA has used to limit carbon emissions from cars. Is this an exceptional situation?

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Clean Air Act Clean Water Act Carbon Emissions Environmental Protection 246

PA Environment Daily

JANUARY 24, 2023

and numerous affiliated companies (collectively, GWRSI) for violation of Clean Air Act (CAA) locomotive regulations. EPA regulations require that rebuilt locomotive engines use the latest technology (for that model year locomotive) to reduce emissions.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 6, 2022

EPA proposed changes to its MON rule in 2019, regulating toxic emissions for about 200 chemical plants that produce solvents, plastics, and pesticides across the country. EPA plans to issue a Clean Air Act rulemaking for commercial sterilizers later this year and for other chemical facilities soon, as well.

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Environment, Law, and History

DECEMBER 11, 2020

President Nixon signs the Clean Air Act of 1970 Richard Revesz recently posted a piece on climate change regulation, " Bostock and the End of the Climate Change Double Standard" , forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law.

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Clean Air Act Climate Change Greenhouse Regulations 52

PA Environment Daily

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

Highlights of the environmental and energy notices in the February 15 PA Bulletin -- -- The Governors Office published an updated agency-by-agency Regulatory Agenda in the February 15 PA Bulletin that lists regulations in development, an estimated schedule of consideration and opportunities for public comments. Read more here. Read more here.

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Legal Planet

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Under the Clean Air Act, California has the unique ability to set its own standards for tailpipe emissions from new vehicles, including greenhouse gases. I predict that we’ll see a wave of legislation and agency regulation at the state level, sparked by federal legislation.

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Carbon Emissions Clean Air Act Electricity 2030 246

Legal Planet

OCTOBER 18, 2022

Nevertheless, and with the possible exception of the Clean Air Act, no law enacted as part of the outpouring of federal environmental legislation in the 1970’s has proven more successful and transformational than the CWA. ” That obviously did not, and will not, happen.

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Clean Water Act Pollution Control Regulations Clean Air Act 243

PA Environment Daily

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

On November 21, the Department of Environmental Protection announced it has determined , in response to a rulemaking petition, the state Environmental Quality Board has the statutory authority to adopt a regulation setting more protective setbacks from shale gas wells for homes, schools and streams in its initial petition review.

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Natural Gas Clean Air Act Regulations Air Pollution 116

PA Environment Daily

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

These penalties are in addition to a $670,000 civil penalty DEP accessed against Shell Falcon Pipeline and its contractor Minnesota Limited LLC for violations of its permit and other laws and regulations that occurred in 2019 and 2020 during pipeline construction. Read more here. Read more here.

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Law Nitrogen Oxides Natural Gas Air Pollution 120

Law and Environment

JULY 1, 2022

EPA on Thursday, June 30, 2022, curbing the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants across the country. The decision focuses on EPA’s authority under a specific section of the Clean Air Act. The imminent impacts on clean energy projects are uncertain.

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Clean Energy Climate Change Clean Air Act Greenhouse 130

Union of Concerned Scientists

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to review—and update—its ethylene oxide emissions standards every eight years, but the last time it did so was in 2006. People of color, people with low-incomes, and non-English speakers have for too long shouldered the weight of weak environmental regulation.

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Clean Air Act 2006 2016 Air Pollution 246

Union of Concerned Scientists

JANUARY 18, 2024

In late December, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released proposed regulations for the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit. The tax credit, passed as part of 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, provides a generous incentive for the production of clean hydrogen.

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Fossil Fuels Clean Energy 2028 Carbon Emissions 262

PA Environment Daily

JUNE 30, 2022

Environmental Protection Agency to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act. Supreme Court released its decision on West Virginia V. EPA, a crucial case concerning the authority of the U.S. Related Articles: -- U.S.

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Regulations Clean Air Act Carbon Dioxide Carbon Emissions 97

Environment Next

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

In a case that could open the door to more citizen suits to enforce mobile source provisions of the Clean Air Act—a category of enforcement actions that has so far failed to gain much traction—the 10 th Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion broadly upholding a non-profit organization’s standing.

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Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 19, 2023

These long-delayed regulations will reduce public health harms that communities near these facilities have been exposed to for decades. Communities have been left in the dark about this invisible threat for too long and EPA must swiftly act to adopt the strongest regulations possible to protect public health.

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PA Environment Daily

JULY 27, 2021

A new NRDC report describes these risks and how weak regulations fail to appropriately protect workers and communities. Despite the clear health risks, there are no dedicated federal regulations to ensure comprehensive and safer management of radioactive oil and gas materials. What does this mean for workers and communities?

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Legal Planet

OCTOBER 26, 2022

discussing the ways in which local air districts can take action to end harmful air pollution from building appliances. As we explained in our brief, under the federal Clean Air Act, states are required to submit SIPs detailing strategies to come into attainment with federal air quality standards for pollutants like ozone and PM2.5.

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Environmental News Bits

JUNE 7, 2023

Clean Air Act emissions limits will remain in place for a category of facilities that includes small MSW combustors and certain institutional waste incinerators after Monday’s decision. Read the full story at Waste Dive.

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