SCS Engineers periodically prepares SCS Technical Bulletins – short, clear summaries of rules, plans, standards, and advice. On January 2, 2026, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will no longer consider the health-related monetary benefits of reducing air pollution when developing regulations. See 40 CFR Part 60 [EPA-HQ-OAR-2024-0419; FRL-11542-01-OAR], RIN 2060-AW21, New Source Performance Standards Review for Stationary Combustion Turbines and Stationary Gas Turbines.
Just because the EPA has de-emphasized health benefits in its cost-effectiveness analyses of pollution control options does not mean that facilities would be protected from liability for any health impacts they cause. In fact, there is risk that if a facility employs a less stringent level of pollution control as a result of EPA’s new policy, that choice, albeit allowed by the linked NSPS regulation, could increase the potential for more health impact lawsuits to be filed as well as to increase the facility’s liability because they chose to utilize a control technology that did not adequately reduce health impacts.
Navigating the Changing Regulatory Landscape: What the New ‘No Health Costs’ Approach Means for Industrial Clients
In our ever-evolving regulatory environment, staying ahead of policy changes is key to maintaining both compliance and strategic foresight. Recently, the EPA’s shift in its regulatory stance—specifically the decision not to factor health costs into pollution controls—has raised important considerations for the industrial sector.
From a practical perspective, this shift may influence how future air regulations—particularly those related to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone—are developed and communicated. While public health considerations remain part of the regulatory discussion, the absence of quantified health benefits in economic analyses could change how the overall impacts of new rules are presented. For regulated entities, this underscores the importance of staying engaged with both regulatory agencies and surrounding communities, and continuing to demonstrate a commitment to sound environmental stewardship as policy approaches evolve.
Understanding the Policy Shift
Traditionally, many environmental regulations have included an assessment of health-related costs and benefits. By taking those out of the equation, the EPA is essentially focusing on the economic and technical sides of compliance without formally weighing public health impacts. For industrial clients, this can translate into changes in how permitting and compliance standards are framed.
Implications for Compliance and Strategy
From a practical standpoint, this shift could mean that certain emissions controls or pollution abatement measures are viewed through a more cost-efficiency lens rather than a health-impact lens. For some facilities, that might reduce the immediate burden of justifying certain health-based mitigation steps. For others, it could lead to a re-examination of how to align with both federal requirements and community expectations.
Staying Proactive and Engaged
Even as the regulatory focus shifts, our advice to clients remains the same: stay proactive. Engaging early with regulatory agencies, understanding the broader community context, and maintaining a commitment to sustainable practices will help ensure that your projects not only meet the letter of the law but also foster long-term trust and reliability with your stakeholders.
Community Implications and Local Engagement
It’s also worth noting that while this regulatory shift focuses less on health costs, the well-being of the local community remains a priority. Industries will still need to engage with residents and local stakeholders to address concerns and demonstrate that, even in a changing regulatory landscape, maintaining trust and environmental responsibility remains key.
Potential Implications for Litigation and Facility-Level Risk
While the recent policy shift does not, by itself, create new regulatory requirements, it may have secondary implications for how air quality impacts are evaluated and challenged outside the federal rulemaking process. By placing less emphasis on monetizing public health benefits in regulatory analyses, future EPA rules may yield a narrower administrative record for health-based justifications, even where health impacts remain an underlying consideration.
In this context, challenges related to air quality impacts may increasingly occur at the facility or permit level, rather than through direct challenges to federal regulations. State agencies, local governments, community organizations, and other stakeholders may rely on state statutes, permitting programs, nuisance claims, or environmental justice frameworks to raise concerns regarding localized or cumulative impacts.
For facility owners and operators, this underscores the importance of maintaining robust, defensible compliance programs. Adherence to permit conditions remains essential, but facilities may also benefit from enhanced documentation of operational controls, emissions performance, monitoring data, and responsiveness to community or regulator inquiries. In some cases, voluntary risk-management measures or early engagement during permitting and modification processes may help reduce the likelihood that disputes will escalate into enforcement actions or litigation.
Technical Takeaway for Facility Owners
As federal rulemaking places less emphasis on quantified health benefits, risk management increasingly shifts to the facility level. Facility owners should assume that:
If you’d like to understand your facilities risk or further investigate O&M program assessment, please get in touch with our experts at SCS Engineers.
Meet our Author: John Tsun, National Practice Leader – Industrial Clean Air Act Services, SCS Engineers.
Additional Resources:
USEPA published its proposed revisions to Air Emissions Reporting Requirements (AERR) in August. AERR is a regulation that requires states, local agencies, and some tribes (SLTs) to report annual air emissions to EPA. The comment period has been extended until November, 17, 2023.
The current regulation allows voluntary reporting of air toxics emissions. EPA uses the data collected and other resources to create the National Emissions Inventory (NEI). NEI supports programs and activities such as Modeling (Air Quality Standards, Risk Analysis, etc.), Trends (Air Quality Trends Report), and Public Information.
AERR currently requires reporting of:
Proposed AERR revisions:
Proposed Phase-in of Stationary Point Source Reporting for owners and operators:
Comments due:
Please direct questions about your facility to your SCS project manager or .
The updates to air regulations intend to remove redundant requirements and reduce compliance burdens where environmentally appropriate.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed updates to the oil and natural gas industry national standards. The proposal intends to remove regulatory duplication while maintaining health and environmental regulations on oil and gas sources that the agency considers appropriate. The proposal is the result of EPA’s review of the 2016 New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for the oil and natural gas (O&G) industry conducted in response to Executive Order 13783 – Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. The goal was to review existing regulations that could potentially “burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources,” including oil and natural gas.
The resulting regulatory impact analysis from EPA estimates that the proposed amendments could save the O&G industry $17-$19 million a year, for a total of $97-$123 million from 2019 through 2025.
“EPA’s proposal delivers on President Trump’s executive order and removes unnecessary and duplicative regulatory burdens from the oil and gas industry,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “The Trump Administration recognizes that methane is valuable, and the industry has an incentive to minimize leaks and maximize its use. Since 1990, natural gas production in the United States has almost doubled while methane emissions across the natural gas industry have fallen by nearly 15%. Our regulations should not stifle this innovation and progress.”
In its primary proposal, the agency is proposing to remove sources in the transmission and storage segment of the O&G industry from regulation. These sources include transmission compressor stations, pneumatic controllers, and underground storage vessels. The agency is proposing that the addition of these sources to the 2016 rule was not appropriate, noting that the agency did not make a separate finding to determine that the emissions from the transmission and storage segment of the industry cause or significantly contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare.
The primary proposal also would rescind emissions limits for methane, from the production and processing segments of the industry; keeping emissions limits for ozone-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These sources include well completions, pneumatic pumps, pneumatic controllers, gathering and boosting compressors, natural gas processing plants and storage tanks. The controls to reduce VOCs emissions also reduce methane at the same time, so separate methane limitations for that segment of the industry are redundant.
In an alternative proposal, EPA would rescind the methane emissions limitations without removing from regulation any sources from the transmission and storage segment of the industry.
The agency also is seeking comment on alternative interpretations of EPA’s legal authority to regulate pollutants under section 111(b)(1)(A) of the Clean Air Act.
This proposal is in addition to a September 2018 technical action that proposed targeted improvements to help streamline implementation, reduce duplication of EPA and state requirements, and significantly decrease unnecessary burdens on domestic energy producers. EPA is currently reviewing comments received on that technical package and expects to issue a final rule in the upcoming months.
EPA will take comment on the proposal for 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register, and will hold a public hearing. EPA will announce details of the hearing shortly.
More information, including a pre-publication version of the Federal Register notice and a fact sheet, is available at https://www.epa.gov/controlling-air-pollution-oil-and-natural-gas-industry
Link to the proposal: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2019-08/documents/frn_oil_and_gas_review_2060-at90_nprm_20190828revised_d.pdf
Link to fact sheet:
Air Monitoring at SCS Engineers / O&G Services
Do you have NSPS or EG sites per the new definitions of “new” and “existing”?
Does your EG site have any upcoming planned or permitted expansions, or will it be commencing construction on an expansion permitted after July 17, 2014?
Will you need to submit/resubmit Design Capacity and NMOC reports to establish your sites status as subject to the new NSPS? Over, or under 34 Mg/year of NMOCs?
Are you a candidate for Tier 4? In the closed landfill subcategory?
For EG sites contact the SCS state representative by sending a request to
SCS Engineers will be publishing Pat Sullivan’s Technical Bulletin Summary of Final NSPS/EG Rules for Landfills as soon as it is published in the federal register. Meanwhile, please contact your SCS Project Manager or for answers to your questions or advice. Follow SCS Engineers on your favorite social media site or check our events for new presentations, publications, and webinars explaining the rules in more detail.
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