The EPA has determined that 45 areas across the country, including Sheboygan County, are not meeting the 2008 8-hour ozone standards based on the most recent certified air quality data. It is possible the number of Wisconsin counties with nonattainment status will increase by the end of the month as the EPA has yet to designate Kenosha County.

The EPA continues to drag its feet in issuing the final coal ash residuals rules, but some groups have filed lawsuits to speed the process. The EPA has said it would finalize the rule in 2012, and the lawsuits seek to hold EPA to that promise with a court-ordered deadline.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency are both accepting comments on a multitude of issues impacting Wisconsin businesses. The agencies are accepting comments on various air, water, and waste rules; and in addition, the DNR is also asking for help identifying burdensome and outdated rules.

On April 13, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument on EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). Court watchers who attended the arguments think the case could go either way based on the judges’ questioning.

Supporters and detractors of the recently proposed rule to limit greenhouse gas emission from existing power plants all agree that the rule will limit the construction and use of coal-burning power plants. GLLF provides a summary of the biggest stories from the Wisconsin and national media.

On March 27, 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first ever Clean Air Act standard for carbon emissions from future power plants. The rules have the potential to end the construction of conventional coal-fired facilities in the United States.

The Obama administration recently issued a memorandum directing all federal agencies to “take active steps to take account of the cumulative effects of new and existing rules and to identify opportunities to harmonize and streamline multiple rules.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is getting into the March Madness spirit with its Regulatory Madness Tournament. The Chamber has selected 16 potential, proposed, and final rules from the past year in the areas of health care, environment and energy, finance, and labor and is putting them head to head in a contest to see which regulation is deemed the “most maddening.”

The EPA has completed a final rule setting secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), and has submitted it to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. This is the last step before the rules become final.

The EPA recently filed its reply brief in EME Homer City Generation LP v. EPA, the case challenging the Cross State Air Pollution Rule.

The Environmental Protection Agency will not lower the existing thresholds in its tailoring rule for stationary emissions sources to obtain greenhouse gas permits, the agency said in a proposed rule released February 27, 2012.

On February 16, 2012, the EPA published the final Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS) in the Federal Register. The purpose of these standards, according to the EPA’s website, is to reduce pollution created by coal and oil power plants.

The EPA is currently accepting comments on its proposal to redesignate the Milwaukee- Racine and Sheboygan areas to attainment for the 1997 8-hour ozone standard.

Although the underlying rule has been stayed by the courts, the EPA has released revisions to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule. Meanwhile, the court has set an expedited briefing schedule and announced the date of oral arguments.

The EPA has submitted several major environmental regulations that are part of the EPA’s train wreck of rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, one of the last steps before a rule is released to the public.

Citing data from the state of Illinois, the EPA has announced it intends to revise its proposed designation for Kenosha County, and recommend it be designated nonattainment for the 2008 8-hour ozone standard. This decision by the EPA is unwelcome, as nonattainment designations carry with them substantial regulatory and related economic burdens.

On February 22nd, the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies Madison, WI Chapter will host a lunch and CLE event titled EPA's Climate Change Regulations: Good Public Policy or Government Overreach? The discussion panel includes Prof. Jonathan Adler, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Prof. Stephanie Tai, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin Law School. The event will be moderated by Ellen Nowak, Esq., Commissioner of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.

The EPA’s Boiler MACT rules were reconsidered and stayed after their publication in March 2011. This article provides analysis of the federal court case that overturned the stay, and details on the EPA’s reconsidered rules which are now available for comment.

The stay of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit casts uncertainty over an EPA proposal to allow states to rely on the Cross State Air Pollution Rule to meet the Clean Air Act’s regional haze requirements. The regional haze program modifications, announced the same day as the stay, are now uncertain.

Mandated by the FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, the EPA launched the GHG Reporting Program in October 2009, requiring the reporting of GHG data from large emission sources across a range of industry sectors, as well as suppliers of products that would emit GHGs if released or combusted. The first data reported under that rule has now been released to the public in an easy to use database.

The EPA’s online data publication tool allows users to view and sort GHG data for calendar year 2010, the first year data was collected under the mandatory rule, from over 6,700 facilities in a variety of ways—including by facility, location, industrial sector, and the type of GHG emitted. For example, the data set includes information on 136 GHG emitters in the state of Wisconsin.