The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is rescinding a Trump-era rule that was expected to make it harder to regulate air pollution, the agency announced on Thursday.
The agency issued an interim rule to rescind the previous rule, which stated that the changes made by the prior rule were “inadvisable, untethered to the [Clean Air Act], and not necessary to effectuate the purposes of the Act.”
Rescinding the Trump-era rule will allow the agency to use the pre-Trump process as it carries out its own regulations.
The rule in question changed the way that the agency conducted cost-benefit analyses, technical pro-con lists used in rulemaking, used to justify the regulations they put forward,
The changes made by the Trump administration included removing the consideration of benefits of reducing additional pollutants besides the one specifically targeted a regulation in the cost-benefit analysis, though it did allow these co-benefits to be included in a separate document.
The Trump administration defended its changes when it issued the rule, billing it as a way to standardize the process.
“Up to now there have been no regulations to hold us, the EPA, accountable to a standardized process and guarantee the public can now see how those calculations informed decisions,” said then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler
Andrew WheelerEPA rescinds Trump rule allowing public to weigh in on agency guidance OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Biden officials unveil plan to conserve 30 percent of US lands and water | Watchdog questions adequacy of EPA standards for carcinogenic chemical emissions | Interior proposing revocation of Trump-era rollback on bird protections Ex-Trump Interior, EPA leaders find new posts MORE at the time.
But the Biden administration took issues with the rule and said in its interim rule that the Trump rule “codified certain practices that conflict with best science.”
Specifically, it said the portion that required the analyses to address certain outside factors that could potentially influence both cause and effect could have resulted in an “inferior” selection of health studies.
