Hill Heat

Subcommittee hearing entitled “Short-Circuiting Progress: How the Clean Air Act Impacts Building Necessary Infrastructure and Onshoring American Innovation.”

Hearing memo

Witnesses:

• Dr. James W. Boylan, Chief of the Air Protection Branch at the Georgia Environmental Protection Division
• Chad S. Whiteman, Vice President, Environment and Regulatory Affairs, Global Energy Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Paul Noe, Vice President, Public Policy, American Forest and Paper Association
• John Walke, Director, Federal Clean Air & Senior Attorney, Environmental Health, Natural Resources Defense Council

ISSUES FOR DISCUSSION

• The process and timelines for reviewing and revising National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
• The timeliness of EPA’s review of State Implementation Plans (SIPS) and the use of Federal Implementation Plans (FIPS).
• The impact that forest fires and exceptional events can have on attaining NAAQS.
• How non-attainment designations can impact infrastructure development and economic growth.
• Air quality trends in recent decades.

The Subcommittee will discuss two legislative discussion drafts to reform the NAAQS program.

A. H.R. ____, CLEAN AIR AND ECONOMIC ADVANCEMENT REFORM ACT (CLEAR ACT)

• This legislation would make several changes to the process for establishing and implementing NAAQS, including extending the current NAAQS review cycle from five years to ten years, allowing consideration of attainability, providing states the opportunity to address concerns in a SIP submission before a FIP is issued, and eliminating certain demonstration requirements in a SIP to promote increased technological innovations in control technologies.
• The legislation would also amend the CAA to modify how certain events including fires, drought, and heat, are considered as part of the NAAQS process. The legislation would also add a new section 179C that provides, with respect to any non-attainment area classified as severe or extreme for ozone or as serious for particulate matter, that sanctions for implementation plan deficiencies under section 179 or fees for failure to attain the air quality standard under section 185 will not apply in certain situations. Specifically, Section 319(b) of the Clean Air Act would include prescribed fires and other actions to mitigate wildfire risk as eligible events for excluding air monitoring data for regulatory determinations. The inapplicability of sanctions and fees under this section does not affect any obligations under the Act to implement measures to attain national ambient air quality standards.
• The legislation would also require the CASAC to include at least 3 people representing state air pollution control agencies and includes a new provision that requires those appointed from state air pollution control agencies to be from different regions of the country and to require the EPA Administrator to request, and the CASAC to provide, advice regarding adverse public health, welfare, social, economic, or energy effects that may result from various strategies for attainment and maintenance of NAAQS.

B. H.R. ____, CLEAN AIR AND BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENT ACT

• This legislation would require the EPA Administrator to concurrently publish regulations and guidance for implementing a revised NAAQS and prevent the new or revised standards from applying to preconstruction permit applications until the Administrator has published such final regulations and guidance. It also clarifies that nothing in the subsection eliminates the obligation of a preconstruction permit applicant to install the best available control technology and lowest achievable emission rate technology, and clarifies that nothing in the subsection limits the authority of a state, local, or Tribal permitting authority to impose more stringent emissions requirements pursuant to a state, local, or tribal law than NAAQS. • The legislation also provides that the 2024 PM2.5 standard shall not apply to the review and disposition of a preconstruction permit application if a permit application is completed on or before the date of promulgation of the final designation of an area; or a public notice of a preliminary determination on a draft permit is provided within 60 days after the date of final designation of an area.
• It also provides that the section shall not be construed to eliminate the obligation of a preconstruction permit applicant to install best available control technology and lowest achievable emission rate technology, as applicable, or limit the authority of a state, local, or tribal permitting authority to impose more stringent emissions requirements than the NAAQS.