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The Environmental Protection Agency has asked an appeals court to vacate the previous administration’s overly stringent rule on particulate matter, or PM2.5, a move the NAM has long urged (Smart Cities Dive).

What’s going on: Last week, the agency filed a motion to vacate the National Ambient Air Quality Standards rule, reduced in February 2024 from 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air to just 9, a 25% reduction.

• The tighter rule “was not based on the full analysis of available science that the statute requires,” the EPA said, and would cost Americans “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars … if allowed to be implemented.”

NAM in action: Last Monday’s move—which came eight months after EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin vowed to “revisit the NAAQS”—was one the NAM has advocated for nearly two years.

• In March 2024, the NAM and seven association partners filed suit against the Biden administration to block the tighter standard.
• Smart Cities Dive cites an NAM statement from that time, in which it said that the standard “would cost businesses and the U.S. economy huge sums, hampering company operations and job growth and forcing tough choices on states and towns nationwide.”
• On Thursday, the NAM filed a response in support of the government’s motion to vacate the tightened rule.

What’s next: “The best-case scenario for manufacturers would be for the court to grant the motion to vacate, giving the EPA a clean slate to engage in a new PM2.5 rulemaking,” said NAM Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Litigation Erica Klenicki.