By Staff Reporter |
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will no longer penalize Arizona and other states for foreign air pollution affecting state levels.
The EPA decision follows local and statewide efforts by Arizona’s elected and grassroots leaders in recent years to toss this regulation.
Among those engaging with the EPA was the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC). The grassroots organization’s president, Scot Mussi, commended the EPA decision.
“Due to this regulation from the Biden Administration, Arizona was being forced to adopt radical control measures, like banning gasoline-powered vehicles, which still would have left our state short of meeting the ozone standard,” said Mussi. “Yet again, the left’s environmental policies have proven to be disastrous and unworkable. For the good of our state and country, we must never repeat these mandates.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Monday it would rescind the Guidance on the Preparation of Clean Air Act Section (CAA) 179B Demonstrations for Nonattainment Areas Affected by International Transport of Emissions.
The EPA published a press release, also on Monday, detailing the changes to air pollution regulations. The rescinded guidance effectively penalized states for air pollution caused by other countries.
“This guidance made it unnecessarily difficult for states to demonstrate that foreign air pollution is harming Americans within their borders,” stated the EPA. “States should not be penalized for air pollution beyond their control, including pollution crossing international borders into the United States.”
In a statement, Zeldin said U.S. citizens shouldn’t be held responsible for other nations’ air pollution failures.
“Americans should not be harmed by other countries that do not have the same environmental standards we have in the United States,” said Zeldin. “Not only are we eliminating cumbersome red tape that placed an excessive burden on states to prove emissions were from an international source, but we are also helping states across our nation prosper while ensuring they continue to provide clean air for their residents.”
The EPA said it would work with state and local air agencies to secure regulatory relief under the rescinded guidance.
The guidance emerged in December 2020 during the last month of the first Trump administration. The guidance was intended to assist state, local, and tribal air agencies with developing a demonstration on how a nonattainment area would be able to attain or would have attained relevant National Ambient Air Quality Standard if not for other countries’ air pollution.
Last month, the EPA agreed to reconsider its determination that the Northern Wasatch Front in Utah failed to attain the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
This latest policy change aligns with the Trump administration’s designs for the EPA under Zeldin outlined in his Powering the Great American Comeback initiative. Zeldin declared in his announcement of the initiative that conservation was inherently a core principle of conservatism.
This initiative announced in February proposes five new pillars of guidance for the EPA’s work over the first 100 days and throughout the next four years, all centered around American independence and dominance: securing clean air, land, and water for all Americans; restoring American energy dominance; permitting reform, cooperative federalism, and cross-agency partnership; making the U.S. the artificial intelligence capital of the world; and protecting and bringing back American auto jobs.
In a joint press release issued on Monday, Maricopa County Chairman Thomas Galvin and Supervisor Debbie Lesko said they made the case in a meeting last month with the EPA of the difficulty for states to prove certain air pollution impacts. The stance from current county leadership marks a departure from past leadership, which advanced measures to meet EPA compliance on ozone standards.
“At that meeting, county leadership demonstrated how difficult it has been for states like Arizona to prove the impact of air pollution from international transport, and as a result, we risk more regulation,” said Galvin and Lesko. “As Administrator Zeldin said, today’s announcement is a step in the right direction for states looking to balance the need for clean air with the importance of economic development.”
Galvin and Lesko also thanked Senator Mark Kelly for providing assistance on the issue.
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