EPA offers companies a way to avoid rules on emissions of toxic chemicals

The Environmental Protection Agency is offering a way for companies to get exemptions from Clean Air Act regulations required under the Biden administration, according to the Associated Press.

Companies can send an email seeking permission from the current administration to bypass the restrictions. Under the Clean Air Act the president can temporarily exempt industrial sites from new rules if the technology required to meet them is not widely available and if the continued activity is in the interest of national security, reports the AP.

Bradford Mank, James B. Helmer Jr. Professor of Law, at the University of Cincinnati, says the EPA issued a series of regulations tightening the regulation of numerous hazardous air pollutants for several industries. 

“But many industrial companies have complained about the cost of these regulations,” says Mank. 

To change the 2024 regulations, the current administration would have to go through notice and comment rulemaking under the federal Administrative Procedure Act, explains Mank. The EPA under its new administrator would have to issue a draft rule questioning the logic, cost and science in the 2024 regulations. Then EPA would need to provide time for public comment.  

Mank told the AP for a story that formally undoing the Biden administration’s protections is complicated and could take years. Exemptions for specific plants may be a faster workaround in the meantime, he adds.

“The Biden Administration did issue a few presidential exemptions from the 2024 regulations in January 2025 just before the end of their tenure,” says Mank. “By making a public announcement that encourages companies to apply for presidential exemptions, the Trump Administration and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin are potentially signaling their willingness to grant more exemptions than the Biden Administration had.”

Read the full Associated Press story online.

Learn more about Professor Bradford Mank online.

Top featured image of an industrial complex courtesy of Istock.