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Last Tuesday, the Tenth Circuit added its name to the growing list of federal appellate courts that agree EPA need not withhold approval of Title V operating permit renewals simply because a citizen group, or even EPA itself, has alleged violations of the New Source Review (NSR) program.  Three other courts that have addressed this issue (the Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits) have likewise held that EPA could approve Title V permits despite unresolved NSR claims, leaving the Second Circuit as the only court to hold otherwise.

It’s official, Gina McCarthy is now the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, who had been holding up Gina McCarthy’s nomination in committee, announced on Tuesday that he won’t support a filibuster against her confirmation on the senate floor. Vitter and other members of the Committee on Environment and Public Works had indicated their dissatisfaction with EPA’s responses to five transparency questions in May.  

Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated yet another EPA rule related to air quality.  This time, the court took issue with EPA’s decision to temporarily exempt biomass facilities from its new greenhouse gas permitting requirements.  Without the exemption, obtaining an air quality permit for a new biomass facility, or any major modifications of an existing facility, will be much more difficult.

EPA has signaled an intent to make its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule — which imposes stringent emission limits on coal and oil-fired utilities beginning in 2015 — a bit easier to manage.  However, the proposed revision may still fall short of what is needed for half of the utilities in the country, according to EPA’s own analysis.

EPA filed a new type of NSR case yesterday against Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E).  Instead of claiming that emissions increased and that the utility conducted a “major modification” without a required permit, EPA is claiming that OG&E failed to prepare proper emission projections in the notifications that it provided to the state permitting authority for the following 8 projects, which OG&E conducted between 2003 and 2006:

Randy Brogdon, Troutman Sanders environmental practice co-chair, was quoted in Law360’s June 25th article on President Obama’s speech which outlined new measures to reduce the country’s carbon footprint. The President tied the controversial Keystone XL pipeline’s fate to the emissions it will cause, a move attorneys say will make it more difficult for the project to win the administration’s approval.“If you read between the lines, its very difficult to come up with a case for Keystone in which there would be no carbon impact going forward,” Brogdon said.

In February, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a proposed rule that requires states to virtually eliminate longstanding, previously EPA-approved air rules governing emissions from “startup, shutdown, or malfunction” (SSM) events. These rules are relied on by all types of emission sources across the country.