Tag: NAAQS

Pregnancy

Pregnancy Study May Influence EPA’s Particulate Matter Review

In its current review of its 2012 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM), the EPA may need to closely consider a new report from the National Toxicology Program (NTP) on the relationship between traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) and hypertension during pregnancy.

Power Plant Fossil Fuel Ozone

One Good Neighbor Provision Remanded; All Other Rule Challenges Denied

In a ruling that helps downwind states with areas in nonattainment with the 2008 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to vacate the EPA’s 2016 rule to update its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). However, the court did remand one […]

2015 Ozone Primary NAAQS Upheld by D.C. Circuit

Two challenges filed from opposite directions against the EPA’s 2015 primary or health-based National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for Ozone were denied by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. At one end, environmental and health advocacy groups argued that the standard was insufficiently protective of children. At the […]

Prescribed burn

How Recurring Prescribed Fires Fit into the NAAQS

The EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards recently issued guidance on how information on prescribed fires on wildland may be factored into exceptional events demonstrations required by Section 319(b) of the Clean Air Act (CAA). If the Agency accepts a state’s exceptional event demonstration, air pollution resulting from the event is excluded from […]

EPA’s Air Monitoring Rule Upheld by D.C. Circuit

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected challenges the Sierra Club mounted against procedures the EPA uses to approve plans states develop to monitor compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

Particulate matter (PM)

PM-2.5 Report Is Flawed, Science Committee Concludes

A 1,880-page draft report on the risk particulate matter (PM) imposes on human health may undergo extensive revisions because the EPA’s powerful Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) has concluded that the methods used by the authors of the report are flawed and that the authors’ estimated impact PM has on mortality is overstated.

air emissions, pollution

EPA Issues Implementation Requirements for 2015 Ozone NAAQS

After grumbling that it intended to resist implementing the revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone it issued in 2015, in August 2018, the EPA informed a federal court that it had decided to uphold and defend the NAAQS as they had been promulgated. That decision set in motion the Agency’s responsibility to […]

Additional Good Neighbor Requirements Unnecessary, Says EPA

Based on “additional information and analysis,” the EPA is proposing to determine that its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) Update for the 2008 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) (October 26, 2016, Federal Register (FR)) satisfies the Agency’s obligation to issue federal implementation plans (FIPs) for 20 states to address air pollution from those […]