"With high stakes for both public health and industry, EPA is set to reveal at least the broad contours of its plans for tightening air quality standards for a particularly pernicious pollutant.
Following a review that took much longer than first expected, the White House regulations office last week sent the proposed soot standards rule back to EPA, clearing the way for its public release. While agency press aides did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking information on the date, “we’re looking forward to making an announcement very soon,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in an interview late last month (E&E News PM, Dec. 20, 2022).
On the line are exposure limits for a pollutant tied to tens of thousands of deaths each year, with a outsize share of that toll falling on people of color and low-income communities. If there’s little doubt that EPA will seek to toughen the rules for what is formally known as fine particulate matter, it’s unclear how far regulators will go — or whether they at this point will propose anything more than a range of options for public feedback (E&E News PM, Dec. 12, 2022)."
