7 days ago
Zeldin pulls Biden-era permitting proposal
A mothballed legal clash over industrial air pollution permitting requirements dating back to President Donald Trump's first term could resume after EPA scrapped a package of proposed changes.
On Monday, Administrator Lee Zeldin withdrew the 2024 draft, which would have overhauled a policy set seven years earlier that loosened the threshold for deciding whether expansions and other major upgrades at a variety of industrial facilities require permits under the agency's New Source Review program.
In opting to pull the proposal, released during former President Joe Biden's tenure, Zeldin wrote that he agreed with critics who said it 'would impose additional burdens and uncertainty on regulated stationary sources without clear and justifiable corresponding benefits.'
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Zeldin's move had been expected. It could now lead to a restart in dormant legal challenges to the Trump-era policy known as 'project emissions accounting' brought by environmental groups and a coalition of Democratic-leaning states.
