The Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment – Division of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) submitted on August 6th to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) a document titled: ARKANSAS AMBIENT AIR...more
The Clean Air Act (“CAA”) envisions states and the federal government working together to improve air quality. Under the CAA, states must develop State Implementation Plans (“SIPs”) to implement National Ambient Air Quality...more
On March 6, 2024, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register its long-awaited reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for particulate matter (PM). In...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) announced today a final rule which will tighten the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“NAAQS”) for fine particulate matter. EPA previously: - Stated on June 10,...more
For anyone involved in the first round of the Clean Air Act regional haze program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) action on the first business day of 2024 came as no surprise: EPA proposed to disapprove the...more
In early January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal to revise and strengthen a key national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for fine particle pollution, also known as PM2.5. The Clean Air Act...more
The goal of the Clean Air Act’s visibility program is to achieve natural visibility conditions by 2064 in federal Class I areas (basically, national parks). States must show that they are making “reasonable progress” towards...more
On November 19, 2020, U.S. EPA published its decision to remove Ohio’s air pollution nuisance rule from Ohio’s SIP in the Federal Register. The removal came at the request of Ohio EPA because the nuisance rule does not have a...more
EPA Region 6 recently proposed to approve Texas’s affirmative defense regulations in its State Implementation Plan (“SIP”) applicable to excess air emissions that occur during certain startup, shutdown or maintenance (SSM)...more
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (“ADEQ”) has scheduled a listening session for August 13th on a pre-proposal draft regulation which is described as streamlining Arkansas Air Quality Regulations. The...more
The Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (“AAPCA”) submitted October 31st comments on the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) Draft FY 2018 – 2022 Strategic Plan (“Plan”). EPA states the Plan...more
You think maintaining compliance with opacity standards is a challenge now – just wait. As anyone who has started a campfire knows, opacity (the density of the smoke) tends to be high when starting and ending fuel burning,...more