Scanned Document

The EPA is reviewing a petition from Earthjustice and community groups regarding the use of Significant Impact Levels (SILs) for ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Louisiana and Texas. While the EPA has rejected the Title VI administrative discrimination portion of the petition due to ongoing litigation, it is conducting a broader national evaluation of SIL guidance through an internal workgroup convened in September 2023, with results expected by the end of 2024. In Louisiana, the EPA is monitoring the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's (LDEQ) progress in addressing modeled National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) violations. LDEQ has identified 15 PSD permit actions since 2018 with predicted exceedances and is conducting case-by-case reviews to determine if these are indicative of actual violations or results of conservative modeling assumptions.

• The EPA's Office of External Civil Rights Compliance rejected the portion of the petition alleging administrative discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's (LDEQ) compliance, citing overlap with ongoing litigation over state permitting decisions.
• The EPA is conducting a systematic evaluation of how ozone and PM2.5 SILs are applied across various states and is considering the application of SILs for other pollutants not covered in its 2018 guidance; this process is being managed by an internal workgroup convened in September 2023 and is expected to conclude by the end of 2024.
• The EPA has requested that LDEQ take three specific actions to protect the NAAQS when PSD permitting air quality analysis identifies potential modeled violations: demonstrate that there is no actual violation, develop a plan to alleviate modeled violations, and consider additional ambient monitoring.
• LDEQ's five-year statewide review of PSD permits issued from 2018 forward identified 15 final permit actions with modeling that predicted one or more NAAQS exceedances, covering 11 facilities across eight parishes: Caddo, Calcasieu, Cameron, Iberville, Plaquemines, St. James, St. John the Baptist, and Washington.
• LDEQ argues that modeled NAAQS exceedances are not necessarily indicative of actual exceedances because 2020-2022 design values for all state monitors are compliant, actual emissions for pollutants like NOx and SO2 have trended downward between 2018 and 2022, and modeling is often highly conservative.
• A preliminary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on January 23, 2024, prohibits the EPA from enforcing cumulative-impact or disparate-impact analysis requirements under Title VI against the State of Louisiana or its agencies.

APA

Earthjustice (2024). Scanned Document. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/24-4-15-epa6-letter-re-sils-petition.pdf

Chicago

Earthjustice. Scanned Document. 2024. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/24-4-15-epa6-letter-re-sils-petition.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Earthjustice |title=Scanned Document |date=15 April 2024 |url=https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/24-4-15-epa6-letter-re-sils-petition.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{earthjustice2024scanned, author = {{Earthjustice}}, title = {{Scanned Document}}, publisher = {Earthjustice}, year = {2024}, month = apr, url = {https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/24-4-15-epa6-letter-re-sils-petition.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }