The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposal to roll back the Biden administration’s so-called “good neighbor” rule to limit downwind emissions from power plants and other industrial sources is drawing both praise and criticism.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, the Good Neighbor Policy requires states to address the interstate transport of air pollution that affects the ability of downwind states to meet and maintain national ambient air quality standards. Each state is required in its State Implementation Plan to prohibit emissions that significantly contribute to noncompliance with the standards or interfere with their maintenance in an upwind state.
Some business groups, including coal industry trade group America’s Power, applauded the action. “This proposed rule is an important step by the Trump administration to curb EPA’s overreach that was forcing the premature retirement of coal plants and recklessly endangering the reliability of our nation’s electric grid,” Michelle Bloodworth, the group’s president and CEO, told ENR.
Environmental groups, including the Clean Air Task Force, criticized the plan.
“The implications are significant, especially for windy states,” said Hayden Hashimoto, his attorney. If finalized, the proposal would weaken interstate air pollution controls by raising the threshold for significant ozone emissions from upwind states, he said. It would also end requirements for upwind states to consider stricter controls to reduce pollution and put the burden of more pollution and compliance costs on downwind states, Hashimoto said.
“The Clean Air Act was intended [for] At least some of that burden falls on downwind states, so they can help downwind states meet” ambient air quality standards, he said. “Without that, you end up with downwind states that have already reduced their pollution, scrambling to find even more difficult and expensive ways to reduce pollution.”
The proposal, announced Jan. 27 as the first phase of the EPA’s reconsideration of the “deeply flawed Biden-era” good neighbor rule, aims to approve implementation plan submissions from eight states (Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi and Nevada, New Mexico and Tennessee) to address interstate transportation rules for the 2015 area standards. The Biden administration disapproved of parts of the plans from five of these states and proposed to disapprove parts of the other three.
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But in June 2024 a Ohio v. EPAthe US Supreme Court stayed enforcement of the good neighbor plan pending judicial review.
The Biden-era decisions were made “despite these states correctly using EPA-supported models and thresholds to demonstrate that they did not interfere with the achievement of [standards] in other states,” the agency said in a statement. “As proposed in the agency’s reconsideration, EPA finds that the eight implementation plans have adequate data demonstrating that these states do not interfere with the ozone attainment for 2015 eight-hour ozone. [standards] in other states”.
The EPA said it also intends to take separate action later this year to address interstate transportation obligations for the remaining states covered in the final Good Neighbor plan. These would include Native American tribal areas located within the geographic boundaries of the covered states.
The agency opened a 30-day public comment period on the proposal on Jan. 30.
Last March, the EPA filed a statement with the US appeals court in Washington, DC indicating that it would reconsider the scope of states and sources, as well as the definition of significant contribution for the good neighbor plan. As of spring 2025, litigation over the plan and disapproval of the 2023 plan has been put on hold pending EPA reconsideration decisions, the agency said.
