The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its plan under the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor” provision (the “Plan”) on March 15, 2023. The Plan requires 23 states to reduce their air pollution that significantly contributes to a downwind state’s ability to meet EPA’s air quality standard for ground-level ozone, or smog, known as the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The goal of the Plan is to reduce ozone nationwide, “with a focus on areas struggling to attain and maintain the 2015 ozone standards.” By the year 2026, nine large industrial sectors will be required to meet sector-specific emissions control requirements and emissions limits.
In balancing the Plan’s costs and benefits, EPA considered the effects of the Plan on minority populations, low-income populations and/or tribal nations by quantitatively evaluating: (1) the proximity of affected facilities to potentially vulnerable and/or overburdened populations for consideration of local pollutants impacted by this rule, and (2) the distribution of ozone and PM2.5 concentrations in the baseline and changes due to the final rulemaking across different demographic groups on the basis of race, ethnicity, poverty status, employment status, health insurance status, age, sex, educational attainment, and degree of linguistic isolation. According to EPA, the Plan and its components, including daily backstop emissions rates for large power plants and regulation of both existing and future power plant and industrial sources, will directly improve the air quality in downwind communities that suffer a disproportionate burden from ozone pollution.
