Environment
EPA Proposes Rolling Back Biden-era Clean Air Good Neighbor Plan
.webp?t=1770408349)
Agency proposal would end requirements that states consider air quality impacts of power and industrial facilities on downwind states.
The U.S. Environment Protection Agency’s recent proposal to roll back the Biden administration’s so-called “good neighbor” rule to limit downwind emissions from power plants and other industrial sources is drawing both praise and criticism.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, the good neighbor policy requires states to address interstate transport of air pollution that affects downwind states’ ability to attain and maintain National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Each state is required in its State Implementation Plan to prohibit emissions that would significantly contribute to non-attainment of the standards, or interfere with their maintenance in a downwind state.
Some business groups, including coal industry trade group America’s Power, applauded the action. “This proposed rule is an important step by the Trump administration to rein in EPA overreach that was forcing the premature retirement of coal plants and recklessly endangering the reliability of our nation’s electric grid,” Michelle Bloodworth, group president and CEO, told ENR.
Environmental advocacy groups, including the Clean Air Task Force, slammed the plan.
“The implications are significant, especially for the downwind states,” said Hayden Hashimoto, its attorney. If finalized, the proposal would weaken cross-state air pollution controls by raising the threshold for significant ozone emissions from upwind states, he said. It would also end requirements that upwind states consider more stringent controls to reduce pollution and put the burden of more pollution and compliance costs on downwind states, Hashimoto said.
“The Clean Air Act intended [for] at least some of that burden to be on the upwind states, so that they could help downwind states achieve attainment” of the ambient air quality standards, he said. “Without that, you end up with downwind states who have already reduced their pollution, struggling to find even more difficult, more expensive ways to reduce pollution.”
The proposal, announced Jan. 27 as the first phase of EPA's reconsideration of “the deeply flawed Biden-era” good neighbor rule, seeks to approve implementation plan submissions from eight states—Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi and Nevada, New Mexico and Tennessee—to address the interstate transport rules for the 2015 eight-hour ozone standards. The Biden administration disapproved portions of the plans for five of those states, and proposed to disapprove portions of the three others.
Looking for quick answers on construction and engineering topics?
Try Ask ENR, our new smart AI search tool.
Ask ENR →
But in June 2024 in Ohio v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the good neighbor plan pending judicial review.
The Biden-era decisions were made “despite these states properly using EPA-supported modeling and thresholds to demonstrate they were not interfering with the attainment of the [standards] in other states,” the agency said in a statement. “As proposed in the agency’s reconsideration, EPA finds that the eight implementation plans have adequate data demonstrating these states are not interfering with ozone attainment for the 2015 eight-hour ozone [standards] in other states.”
EPA said it also intends to take separate action later this year to address interstate transport obligations for the remaining states covered in the final good neighbor plan. These would include Native American tribal areas located within the geographic bounds of the covered states.
The agency opened a 30-day public comment period on the proposal on Jan. 30.
Last March, EPA filed a declaration with the U.S. appeals court in Washington, D.C. indicating that it would reconsider the scopes of states and sources as well as the definition of significant contribution for the good neighbor plan. Since the spring of 2025, litigation over the plan and 2023 plan disapproval has been put into abeyance pending EPA’s reconsideration decisions, the agency said.
