On April 12, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new pollutant emissions standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles and heavy duty vehicles. The proposed rules set new, aggressive greenhouse gas (GHG) emission limits for all three vehicle classes and criteria pollutant standards for light and medium duty vehicles.
Big picture: Both proposed rules are premised on a sweeping shift from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles as well as,… More
Last month’s proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) from the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) proposed significant changes to the RFS Program, which we summarized in a prior post. One of the major changes in the proposed rule is its treatment of biogas and renewable natural gas (“RNG”): the rule would open up new potential RIN generation from biogas through changes to the eRIN program and the establishment of RNG as a biointermediate. … More
On December 1, 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) proposed a sweeping new rule for the Renewable Fuel Standards (“RFS”) Program, the federal government’s flagship program for facilitating the production of renewable transportation fuels to offset fossil fuels. Administered correctly, the Program could be a critical tool to combat climate change, including by incentivizing needed low-carbon fuels for air travel and other difficult-to-electrify sectors.
The proposed rule is significant in many ways.… More
Federal agencies continue to roll out plans to address environmental justice issues, which has become a focal point in the Biden administration’s agenda. Now that the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is in effect, federal agencies are now able to access more funds to address environmental justice concerns. As discussed in a prior blog post, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its “Equity Action Plan” in April 2022 and on September 30,… More
In an effort to “redress inequities in [Federal] policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal opportunity,” the Biden administration has set forth an agenda to identify areas of improvement and advance equity across the Federal Government. On January 20, President Biden issued Executive Order 13985 which requires agencies to produce “Equity Action Plans” that are agency sponsored reports to assess whether underserved communities face systemic barriers in accessing benefits and opportunities available based on an agency’s policies and programs.… More
Earlier this week, Greenwire (subscription required) had an interesting story about the role that EPA’s estimate of the cost to comply with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule played in the politics and judicial review of the rule. It turned out that compliance costs were much less than originally estimated by EPA – let alone by industry. Unfortunately, the $9.6 billion price tag originally put on the MATS rule lived on,… More
The biofuels industry has had a challenging season in the courts. Several weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that had limited EPA’s ability to grant waivers to small refiners that allow them to escape compliance obligations under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program. Then, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the D.C.… More
Within hours after being sworn into office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order (“EO”) that teed up a slew of clean air issues as top environmental priorities. The Biden administration signaled its plan to unwind four years of environmental and energy policies marked by aggressive deregulation and sidelining efforts to combat climate change.
Although only allotted a short paragraph in the EO,… More