EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin could delay enforcement of an air pollution standard projected to save thousands of lives while the agency awaits a pivotal court ruling, a spokesperson indicated Monday, Feb. 9, according to an article from Politico.
Under the Clean Air Act, Zeldin can take another year to decide which parts of the country are flunking the stronger 2024 soot exposure standard if he decides that more information is needed, EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch said in an email.
The agency missed a statutory Saturday, Feb.7 deadline for making those decisions. Apart from acknowledging receipt of a follow-up query, Hirsch did not immediately provide answers to additional questions seeking confirmation that Zeldin plans to invoke that waiver and, if so, on what grounds.
She and other press aides had previously declined to comment on the agency’s options, citing the active litigation.
One basis could be a recent industry coalition petition challenging the accuracy of hundreds of soot monitors used to determine compliance. Joseph Stanko, an attorney for the NAAQS [National Ambient Air Quality Standards] Regulatory Review and Rulemaking Coalition, said in a Monday email that the group had thus far not received a response from EPA.
The stronger standard for what is formally known as fine particulate matter was put in place during the Biden administration and is projected to save up to 4,500 lives per year when fully in place in 2032.
Under President Donald Trump, EPA in November asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to instead throw it out before Saturday’s deadline. A three-judge panel has yet to issue a decision.
In an email, Earthjustice attorney Seth Johnson, who represents environmental groups in the litigation that back the stronger standard, criticized the holdup.
“Delays in making designations mean delays in reducing deadly soot air pollution,” Johnson wrote. “That means more people dying, going to the hospital, developing lung cancer, and having asthma attacks.”
Under the act, particulate matter is among a half-dozen pollutants covered by National Ambient Air Quality Standards that EPA is supposed to periodically review — and, if needed, revise — based on the latest research into their health and environmental effects.
During President Joe Biden’s tenure, EPA tightened the annual soot exposure standard in February 2024 from 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 9 micrograms; the act then calls for the agency to make the initial round of attainment designations within two years. Most states submitted their recommendations last year.
It would not be the first time, however, that EPA has failed to meet comparable enforcement deadlines.
“This has happened before; it has lagged under both sides,” said Steve Milloy, the publisher of the blog JunkScience.com., who disputes the widespread scientific consensus that soot is harmful.
After EPA under President Barack Obama tightened the sulfur dioxide exposure standard in 2010, for example, the process of making initial attainment designations stretched out over the rest of the decade under the settlement terms to a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
During Trump’s first term, the agency in 2017 initially sought to impose a blanket one-year delay in making compliance decisions for the 70 parts per billion smog standard set two years earlier, but quickly backed down following a separate court challenge by environmental and public health groups.
Implementation nonetheless dragged on well past the legal deadline.
