Climate Change

Remove the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) for any source category that is not currently being regulated.

The overall reporting program imposes significant burdens on small businesses and companies that are not being regulated. This is either a pointless burden or a sword-of- Damocles threat of future regulation, neither of which is appropriate. Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009 endangerment finding.

Establish a significant emissions rate (SER) for greenhouse gasses (GHGs). Regulating Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) Under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act22

Repeal Biden Administration implementing regulations for the AIM Act that are unnecessarily stringent and costly.

Refrain from granting petitions from opportunistic manufacturers to add new restrictions that further skew the market toward costlier refrigerants and equipment.

Conduct realistic cost assessments that reflect actual consumer experiences instead of the current unrealistic ones claiming that the program is virtually cost-free.

Mobile Source Regulation by the Office of Transportation and Air Quality

Review the existing “ramp rate” for car standards to ensure that it is actually achievable.

Include life cycle emissions of electric vehicles and consider all of their environmental impacts.

Restore the position that California’s waiver applies only to California- specific issues like ground-level ozone, not global climate issues. Ensure that other states can adopt California’s standards only for traditional/criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gases.

Establish GHG car standards under Department of Transportation (DOT) leadership that properly consider cost, choice, safety, and national security.

Stop the use of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to increase standards on airplanes.

Reconsider the Cleaner Trucks Initiative to balance the goal of driving down emissions without creating significant costs or complex burdens on the industry.

Air Permitting Reforms for New Source Review (Pre-Construction Per- mits) and Title V (Operating Permits)

Develop reforms to ensure that when a facility improves efficiency within its production process, new permitting requirements are not triggered. Restore the Trump EPA position on Once-In, Always-In (that major sources can convert to area sources when affiliated emissions standards are met). Revisit permitting and enforcement assumptions that sources will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; this artificially inflates a source’s potential to emit (PTE), which can result in more stringent permit terms.

Defend the position that petitions to object to Title V should not be used to second-guess previous state decisions. Clarify the relationship between New Source Review and Title V to ensure that Title V is used only as intended by Congress. CAA Section 11123

Restore the position that EPA cannot regulate a new pollutant from an already regulated source category without making predicate findings for that new pollutant.

Institute automatic withdrawal of any proposed rule that is not finalized within the statutorily prescribed one-year period. Revise general implementing regulations for existing source regulatory authority under CAA § 111(d)24 to ensure that EPA gives full meaning to Congress’s direction, including source-specific application, and that the state planning program is flexible, federalist, and deferential to the states.

Unregulated point or non-point source (fugitive emissions) of an already regulated hazardous air pollutant do not require a Maximum Available Control Technology (MACT) standard. Ensure that Section 112 regulations are harmonized with Section 111 regulations that apply to the same sector/sources. Ensure that cost-benefit analysis is focused on a regulation’s targeted pollutant and separately identify ancillary or co-benefits.

Radiation

Assess and update the agency’s radiation standards so that they align with those of other agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, and Department of Transportation, as well as international standards. Level-set past, misleading statements regarding radiological risk and reassess the Linear Non-Threshold standard.

CAA Section 112 (Hazardous Air Pollutants)25 Personnel, Budget, and Office Restructuring

Establish a political Chief of Staff in D.C. to manage the entire air office. Pull the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program out of OTAQ; establish its own suboffice in D.C. (with status parallel to OTAQ and OAQPS) that is headed by a political appointee; and establish a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy to work together to establish RFS programs. Require regional air offices to receive approval from OAR before moving forward with enforcement actions in order to ensure that enforcement is meeting the requirements established by regulations and is not going beyond them.

Place a political appointee in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ, regulating mobile sources) and a political appointee in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS, regulating stationary sources) and give those appointees the requisite titles and authority to oversee the OTAQ and OAQPS staff.