DC Circuit lets EPA delay stricter emission standards at steel mills

WASHINGTON (CN) — A D.C. Circuit panel affirmed on Friday the Environmental Protection Agency’s delayed deadline for steel mills to comply with hazardous material emission standards, rejecting challenges by a coalition of environmental groups who said their members were harmed by the industry’s pollution.

The three-judge panel found that extending the new emission standards start date to April 3, 2027 — they were first enacted in 2024 — did not violate the Clean Air Act as the EPA properly explained its decision and followed its procedural obligations.

U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote the court’s opinion and was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Florence Pan and Bradley Garcia, both Joe Biden appointees.

“EPA explained the deadline extensions were necessary because problems with the regulatory standards made compliance by the original deadlines technologically infeasible,” Rao wrote. “We conclude that EPA’s deadline extensions are consistent with the Clean Air Act and reasonably explained, and petitioner’s procedural challenge to the interim rule has been superseded by EPA’s promulgation of the final rule.”

According to the EPA’s final rule, the steel industry argued the standards were incompatible with the need for reliable iron and steel production to support national security and infrastructure needs.

The case centers on the emission standards for integrated iron and steel manufacturing facilities, referred to as steel mills.

The steelmaking process involves exposing iron ore to pressurized air in a blast furnace to make molten iron, which is then blown with oxygen in a basic oxygen process furnace to produce steel. The chemical reactions that occur at both stages generate hazardous air pollutants, most of all carbon dioxide.

According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the iron and steel sector accounts for nearly 9% of all carbon dioxide emissions caused by humans. Making one ton of steel emits approximately 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide.

The EPA first set “Maximum Achievable Control Technology” standards for steel mills in 2003, which requires facilities to achieve pollution reductions equal to the five best-performing steel mills. In 2020, the EPA completed a review of the standards and determined no revisions were necessary. After another review, it added emission standards that became the 2024 standards at issue here.

Under the April 2024 rule, the EPA established new standards for five previously unregulated sources of emissions during the steelmaking process: unplanned bleeder valve openings, planned bleeder valve openings, bell leaks, slag processing and beaching.

A coalition of environmental groups — led by the Clean Air Council — and steel companies petitioned the EPA for reconsideration in June 2024, which was first rejected by the agency before Trump returned to office, after which the agency said it identified several issues and would reconsider the new standards.

In July 2025, the EPA then extended the compliance deadlines to April 3, 2027. The Clean Air Council and four other environmental groups petitioned for review, arguing the extensions violate the Clean Air Act and its three-month limit on stays pending reconsideration.

Rao determined the rule’s deadline extensions comply with the Clean Air Act, as the review went beyond a delay “merely to conduct proceedings to resolve issues raised in a reconsideration petition.”

“By contrast, in the Final Rule EPA delayed the compliance deadlines because of specific technical issues that undermined the ability of steel mills to comply,” Rao wrote. “The Clean Air Act requires EPA to establish deadlines that provide for compliance ‘as expeditiously as practicable,’ and here EPA made findings that the existing compliance deadlines were not practicable.”

Rao further rejected the environmental groups’ argument that the EPA exceeded its authority by effectively putting the deadlines on ice well beyond the Clean Air Act’s time limits.

“The Clean Air Act’s reconsideration provision does not swallow EPA’s other regulatory authorities to change compliance deadlines,” Rao wrote. “In the Final Rule, EPA properly relied on these authorities by offering specific, technological reasons why it would be impracticable for steel mills to comply with the deadlines in the 2024 rule. That approach is not an impermissibly long ‘reconsideration,’ but rather an exercise of EPA’s regulatory authority over setting and implementing hazardous emission standards.”

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