Clean Air Council v. EPA
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Date FiledJuly 17, 2026
Docket25-1163
StatusPublished
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Full Opinion
United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued May 11, 2026 Decided July 17, 2026
No. 25-1163
CLEAN AIR COUNCIL, ET AL.,
PETITIONERS
v.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY AND LEE M. ZELDIN,
ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY,
RESPONDENTS
AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE, ET AL.,
INTERVENORS
Consolidated with 25-1286
On Petitions for Review of Final Actions
of the Environmental Protection Agency
Adrienne Y. Lee argued the cause for petitioners. With her
on the briefs was James S. Pew.
2
Peter M. Torstensen, Jr., Attorney, U.S. Department of
Justice, argued the cause for respondents. On the brief were
Adam R.F. Gustafson, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney
General, Robert N. Stander, Deputy Assistant Attorney
General, and Mario A. Luna, Attorney.
John D. Lazzaretti argued the cause for intervenors in
support of respondents. With him on the brief was Lianne
Mantione. Douglas A. McWilliams entered an appearance.
Before: RAO, PAN and GARCIA, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RAO.
RAO, Circuit Judge: The Environmental Protection
Agency extended the deadlines for steel mills to comply with
certain hazardous emission standards. EPA first issued an
interim rule and then, after receiving comments, promulgated
a final rule. EPA explained the deadline extensions were
necessary because problems with the regulatory standards
made compliance by the original deadlines technologically
infeasible. Several environmental groups petitioned for review.
We conclude that EPA’s deadline extensions are
consistent with the Clean Air Act and reasonably explained,
and petitioners’ procedural challenge to the interim rule has
been superseded by EPA’s promulgation of the final rule.
I.
A.
This case involves emission standards for integrated iron
and steel manufacturing facilities, i.e., steel mills. Steel is made
in two basic steps. First, molten iron is produced by exposing
iron ore to hot, pressurized air in a blast furnace. Next, the
3
molten iron and other raw materials are blown with oxygen in
a basic oxygen process furnace to produce steel. The chemical
reactions that take place at both steps generate hazardous air
pollutants.
EPA first promulgated maximum achievable control
technology (“MACT”) standards for steel mills in 2003. See 42
U.S.C. § 7412(d)(1)–(2) (directing EPA to set standards that
“require the maximum degree of reduction in emissions
of … hazardous air pollutants”). As required by the Clean Air
Act, EPA set MACT standards for existing steel mills based on
the emission levels achieved by the five best performing steel
mills. See id. § 7412(d)(3)(B). In 2020, EPA completed long
overdue reviews of the steel mill standards, concluding that no
revisions were necessary.1 EPA later conducted another review
that resulted in the promulgation of additional emission
standards. National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air
Pollutants: Integrated Iron and Steel Manufacturing Facilities
Technology Review, 89 Fed. Reg. 23294 (Apr. 3, 2024) (“2024
Rule”).
Three aspects of the 2024 Rule are relevant here. First,
EPA established new MACT standards for five previously
unregulated sources of hazardous air pollutants generated
during steelmaking: unplanned bleeder valve openings,
planned bleeder valve openings, bell leaks, slag processing,
and beaching. For each standard, EPA set a compliance
deadline of one or two years in accordance with the Clean Air
Act’s requirement that EPA must “provide for compliance as
expeditiously as practicable, but in no event later than 3 years
1
Within eight years of setting initial MACT standards, EPA must
determine if additional standards are required “to provide an ample
margin of safety to protect public health.” 42 U.S.C. § 7412(f)(2)(A).
EPA must also “review, and revise [the standards] as necessary … no
less often than every 8 years.” Id. § 7412(d)(6).
4
after the effective date of such standard.” 42 U.S.C.
§ 7412(i)(3)(A). Second, EPA revised the method and
frequency for measuring furnace emissions and set a one-year
compliance deadline. Finally, EPA imposed a fenceline
monitoring requirement for testing chromium emissions along
facility perimeters. Because EPA had not yet promulgated a
test method, the compliance deadline for fenceline monitoring
was set to one year after the promulgation of a test method or
two years after the promulgation date of the 2024 Rule,
whichever comes later.
B.
In June 2024, environmental groups and steel companies
petitioned EPA for reconsideration of the 2024 Rule. The Clean
Air Act ordinarily requires that objections to a rule be raised
during the public comment period. 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(7)(B).
But if a person can show that “it was impracticable to raise [an]
objection within such time or if the grounds for such objection
arose after the period for public comment … and if such
objection is of central relevance to the outcome of the rule,”
then EPA “shall convene a proceeding for reconsideration of
the rule.” Id. While such reconsideration does not
automatically “postpone the effectiveness of the rule,” the rule
“may be stayed during such reconsideration … for a period not
to exceed three months.” Id.
EPA responded to the petitions in August 2024, explaining
that none of the issues raised required reconsideration. EPA
stated it would nonetheless revisit some aspects of the 2024
Rule and would fix technical errors through a corrections
notice. In light of the complex data involved, EPA explained
that it would continue to evaluate whether other aspects of the
2024 Rule warranted revision.
5
After a change in presidential administrations, EPA
responded again to the petitions, announcing it had identified
several issues requiring reconsideration under the Clean Air
Act and would continue to assess whether there might be
others. EPA issued a 90-day stay pending reconsideration of all
MACT standards promulgated under the 2024 Rule with year-
2025 compliance deadlines.
EPA then promulgated an interim final rule extending
several compliance deadlines in the 2024 Rule. National
Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants: Integrated
Iron and Steel Manufacturing Facilities Technology Review:
Interim Final Rule, 90 Fed. Reg. 29485 (July 3, 2025) (“Interim
Rule”). Citing compliance challenges, EPA extended the 2025
and 2026 deadlines for unplanned and planned bleeder valve
openings, bell leaks, slag processing, beaching, and furnace
emission monitoring to April 3, 2027. EPA also updated the
fenceline monitoring deadline to the later of April 3, 2027, or
one year after promulgation of a test method.
EPA relied on the “good cause” exception to notice and
comment to issue the Interim Rule. That exception allows EPA
to forgo notice and comment “when the agency for good cause
finds … that notice and public procedure thereon are
impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.”
5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(B); 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(1) (preserving this
exception within the Clean Air Act’s judicial review scheme).
EPA determined that notice and comment procedures would be
impracticable because several of the deadlines were imminent
and steel mills would be unable to comply. EPA did, however,
request comment on the revised compliance deadlines imposed
by the Interim Rule.
Five environmental advocacy groups petitioned for review
of the Interim Rule, raising procedural and substantive
6
challenges. After the petitioners filed their opening brief, EPA
issued a final rule that responded to comments on the Interim
Rule and reaffirmed the extended compliance deadlines.
National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants:
Integrated Iron and Steel Manufacturing Facilities Technology
Review, 90 Fed. Reg. 55681 (Dec. 3, 2025) (“Final Rule”). For
each extended deadline, EPA explained that errors in the 2024
Rule or new information showed that compliance would be
significantly more difficult than expected. For fenceline
monitoring, EPA affirmed that no test method had yet been
promulgated and that it was updating the deadline for
consistency with the other revisions.
Petitioners sought review of the Final Rule, and we
consolidated that petition with the petition for review of the
Interim Rule. Two steel companies and a trade association
intervened to defend the new deadlines.2 We have statutory
subject matter jurisdiction over the petitions under 42 U.S.C.
§ 7607(b)(1).
II.
Although neither EPA nor intervenors contest the point,
we confirm that petitioners have standing to invoke this court’s
jurisdiction.3 Petitioners are five environmental nonprofits with
2
Other petitions challenging the new MACT standards in the 2024
Rule have been held in abeyance while EPA continues to review
those standards. See Order, Am. Iron & Steel Inst. v. EPA,
No. 20-1354 (D.C. Cir. June 22, 2026) (ordering the consolidated
cases continue to be held in abeyance).
3
We also confirm intervenors’ standing. Under this circuit’s
precedents, “Article III standing is a prerequisite to intervention,
even as a respondent.” IGas Holdings, Inc. v. EPA, 146 F.4th 1126,
1135 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 2025). But see Institutional S’holder Servs., Inc.
v. SEC, 142 F.4th 757, 764 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (recognizing that our
7
members who live and work near steel mills subject to the 2024
Rule’s emission standards. To demonstrate associational
standing, at least one of the petitioners must show that (1) one
or more of its members would have standing to sue in his or her
own right; (2) the interests the association seeks to protect are
germane to its purpose; and (3) neither the claim asserted nor
relief requested requires individual members to participate in
the lawsuit. Int’l Dark-Sky Ass’n, Inc. v. FCC, 106 F.4th 1206,
1217 (D.C. Cir. 2024).
Petitioners submitted ten declarations to support their
standing, including one declaration from an individual member
of each organization. According to the declarations,
petitioners’ members experience specific adverse health
symptoms, as well as recreational, aesthetic, and other harms,
attributable to pollution from steel mills. See, e.g., Abeyta
Decl. ¶¶ 1, 9–12 (Clean Air Council member describing
respiratory symptoms and curtailed activities due to pollution
from a nearby steel mill); Ballinger Decl. ¶¶ 2, 11–12 (similar
declaration from Sierra Club member). Petitioners’ members
aver that delaying the compliance deadlines for the 2024 Rule’s
emission standards exacerbates these harms.
cases requiring intervenors to show standing even when seeking the
same relief as an existing party are in tension with Little Sisters of
the Poor Saints Peter & Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 140 S. Ct.
2367, 2379 n.6 (2020)). Intervenors are the two parent companies of
the eight steel mills regulated by the 2024 Rule and a trade
association of steel producers, of which one of the two companies is
a member. Because the two companies are directly regulated by the
relevant rules, they have standing to intervene as respondents. See
IGas Holdings, 146 F.4th at 1135 n.2. The industry association
likewise has standing because at least one of its members is directly
regulated. Id.
8
Under our environmental standing precedents, this is
sufficient to demonstrate standing. In the 2024 Rule, EPA
found that the new emission standards would “improve air
quality and the health of persons living in surrounding
communities.” 89 Fed. Reg. at 23315. Because petitioners’
members face exposure to the harms the standards would
mitigate, petitioners have alleged concrete and particularized
injuries traceable to EPA’s decision to delay the compliance
deadlines. See Air All. Houston v. EPA, 906 F.3d 1049, 1058–
59 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per curiam) (holding that an association
had standing to challenge EPA’s delay of a rule’s effective date
because the delay exposed members to “a higher risk
of … harms than would exist” if the rule “became effective on
time”).
The other two associational standing requirements are
likewise satisfied. As to germaneness, the petitioners’
declarations credibly connect their claims to their
environmental purposes, which include protecting the public
from toxic air pollution. See, e.g., Fox Decl. ¶ 6 (stating Clean
Air Council “is dedicated to protecting … everyone’s right to
breathe clean air”); Isherwood Decl. ¶ 8 (stating “Sierra Club
has dedicated itself to protecting public health and its members
from … toxic air pollution”). And no individual member need
participate as a named petitioner in the lawsuit. The petitions
challenge the lawfulness of the Interim and Final Rules and
seek to vacate them, so “[n]either the legal claims nor the relief
sought involve individual grievances.” Int’l Dark-Sky Ass’n,
106 F.4th at 1218. The petitioners have established
associational standing.
III.
Petitioners challenge EPA’s revised compliance deadlines,
arguing that they are inconsistent with the Clean Air Act and
9
unreasonable. Because the Final Rule reaffirmed the deadlines
in the Interim Rule and petitioners’ substantive challenges are
applicable to both rules, we focus our analysis on the Final
Rule. See Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgeons v. Sebelius, 746
F.3d 468, 473 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (not reaching substantive
challenges to an interim rule after rejecting such challenges to
a subsequent final rule because “it is clearly preferable as a
general matter to review a set of claims in the context of an
extant rather than a defunct rule”).
The Clean Air Act specifies the grounds for judicial review
of certain EPA rules. See 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(9). Review is
“essentially the same as judicial review under the
[Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”)].” U.S. Sugar Corp. v.
EPA, 113 F.4th 984, 991 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (per curiam)
(cleaned up). Challenges to the scope of EPA’s authority under
the Clean Air Act are reviewed de novo. See Loper Bright
Enters. v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244, 2261 & n.4 (2024). And
under the APA’s familiar standard for arbitrary and capricious
review, we consider whether EPA has examined the “relevant
data and articulate[d] a satisfactory explanation for its action
including a rational explanation of the facts found and the
choice made.” Air Alliance, 906 F.3d at 1066 (cleaned up).
Applying these standards, we hold the revised compliance
deadlines are consistent with the Clean Air Act and reasonably
explained.
A.
Petitioners argue that EPA lacked authority to use
rulemaking to extend the compliance deadlines because the
extensions are incompatible with the Clean Air Act’s three-
month limit on stays pending reconsideration.
10
The Act permits EPA to stay a rule’s effectiveness for up
to three months pending “reconsideration” in light of
objections that could not have been raised earlier and that are
“of central relevance” to the rule. 42 U.S.C. § 7607(d)(7)(B).
In Air Alliance, we held that EPA lacks authority to use general
rulemaking authority to extend a rule’s effective date beyond
three months “for the purposes of reconsideration under that
provision.” 906 F.3d at 1061. A rule that extended a
regulation’s effective date by 20 months was accordingly
unlawful because the “only justification” EPA gave was that it
needed more time to “consider petitions for
reconsideration … and take further regulatory action, as
appropriate.” Id. at 1060–61 (cleaned up). Petitioners maintain
that EPA’s decision to revise the 2024 Rule’s compliance
deadlines beyond three months similarly exceeds EPA’s
authority.
The Final Rule’s deadline extensions are consistent with
the Clean Air Act’s specific time limit on stays pending
“reconsideration.” When EPA is delaying a rule’s effectiveness
merely to conduct proceedings to resolve issues raised in a
reconsideration petition, it must abide by the three-month limit.
Applying this provision in Air Alliance, we vacated an effective
date extension rule because EPA relied solely on the need for
more time for reconsideration, without making any substantive
findings as to why a delay was required. Id. at 1063–65.
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. See Part III.B, infra. This is
a proper exercise of EPA’s regulatory authority, which allows
EPA to establish compliance deadlines for hazardous emission
standards. See 42 U.S.C. § 7412(d)(1) (authorizing EPA to
“promulgate regulations establishing emission standards for
each category or subcategory of major sources”); id.
11
§ 7412(i)(3)(A) (requiring EPA to “establish a compliance date
or dates” for emission standards “for each category or
subcategory of existing sources”). The Clean Air Act requires
EPA to establish deadlines that provide for compliance “as
expeditiously as practicable,” and here, unlike in Air Alliance,
EPA made findings that the existing compliance deadlines
were not practicable. Id. § 7412(i)(3)(A). Neither the statute
nor Air Alliance precludes EPA from setting new compliance
deadlines pursuant to this regulatory authority.
Petitioners also argue that, even if EPA had authority to
extend the compliance deadlines, any acknowledgement by
EPA that it intended to revise the 2024 Rule’s substantive
standards renders the new deadlines arbitrary and capricious
because that is not a factor EPA is permitted to consider.
Petitioners point to EPA’s statement in the Interim Rule that it
was revising the deadlines “to allow sufficient time to address
the issues” teed up by the reconsideration petitions “and to
allow sufficient time for compliance in light of the new data
and information presented” to EPA. 90 Fed. Reg. at 29489.
Even if EPA relied in part on needing more time to revise
the relevant standards, EPA made clear that compliance
challenges were a necessary and sufficient reason for extending
the deadlines. Throughout the Interim and Final Rules, EPA
explicitly stated it was delaying the deadlines because of
specific compliance challenges. See, e.g., Interim Rule, 90 Fed.
Reg. at 29485 (“EPA is revising certain compliance
deadlines … in light of serious concerns that facilities will be
unable to comply with the relevant requirements by the existing
deadlines.”); Final Rule, 90 Fed. Reg. at 55683 (“[T]he
compliance deadlines were revised for each standard based on
the unique compliance challenges presented in practice by each
standard.”). The fact that EPA also candidly referred to
ongoing efforts to update the 2024 Rule does not render the
12
new deadlines arbitrary and capricious. See Fontem US, LLC v.
FDA, 82 F.4th 1207, 1217 (D.C. Cir. 2023) (recognizing that,
when an agency invokes multiple grounds for a decision, the
decision may be upheld so long as valid reasons provide a
“sufficient basis” for the decision).
The Clean Air Act’s reconsideration provision does not
swallow EPA’s other regulatory authorities to change
compliance deadlines. 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.
B.
For their remaining substantive challenges, petitioners
argue that EPA set unreasonable deadlines and did not explain
how the deadlines “provide for compliance as expeditiously as
practicable.” 42 U.S.C. § 7412(i)(3)(A). We hold the deadline
extensions are reasonably explained and consistent with the
statutory requirement.
1.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set deadlines for
existing sources to comply with MACT standards “as
expeditiously as practicable, but in no event later than 3 years
after the effective date of such standard.” 42 U.S.C.
§ 7412(i)(3)(A). A standard is “practicable” if it is “[c]apable
of being put into practice, carried out in action, effected,
accomplished, or done.” Practicable, Oxford English
Dictionary (2d ed. 1989). For each of the MACT standards in
the 2024 Rule, EPA relied on information showing that
13
compliance would be significantly more difficult than
anticipated. These determinations about how much time steel
mills will require for expeditious compliance are squarely
within EPA’s expertise to make predictive judgments about the
implementation of the 2024 Rule. See Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v.
U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 955 F.3d 96, 99 (D.C. Cir. 2020)
(recognizing “courts are not well equipped to second-guess”
agencies’ predictive judgments within their expertise). Based
on these findings, EPA reasonably and lawfully extended the
deadlines to three years after the 2024 Rule’s promulgation
date.
We first evaluate the three standards with one-year
compliance deadlines: planned bleeder valve opening opacity
limits, bell leak work practice standards, and furnace
monitoring frequency. As EPA explained, the one-year
deadlines rested on an assumption that steel mills could comply
with these standards without installing new equipment.
Technical issues identified after the 2024 Rule was
promulgated, however, undermined that assumption.
For planned bleeder valve openings, the 2024 Rule
imposed an opacity limit of eight percent for existing steel
mills. A bleeder valve is a device used to release pressure from
a blast furnace, either deliberately by an operator (a planned
opening) or automatically because of a pressure buildup (an
unplanned opening). Opacity is a measure of how much light
is blocked or absorbed by visible air pollution—a proxy for
hazardous pollutants—where a lower value corresponds to less
pollution. Opacity readings are taken by certified observers in
person or based on camera images. When a bleeder valve
opens, an opacity reading of the surrounding air will indicate
the amount of pollution released.
14
EPA gave two reasons why the eight percent opacity limit
for planned bleeder valve openings rendered compliance in one
year impracticable. First, the 2024 Rule set the limit based only
on data from planned openings with at least two hours of lead
time, for which operators have an opportunity to mitigate
emissions. The 2024 Rule, however, requires all openings
initiated by an operator to comply with this limit, even when
there is little or no lead time. This means operators may not
have an opportunity to mitigate emissions or enough time to
take an opacity reading. Second, the 2024 Rule relied on data
from the best performing steel mills. But that data turned out to
be incomplete, and additional data from one such facility
demonstrated higher opacity at that facility. EPA reasonably
concluded that it “likely will be infeasible for most sources to
comply” with the opacity limit, which had been set based on
unrepresentative data. Final Rule, 90 Fed. Reg. at 55685.
EPA reached a similar conclusion with respect to the
compliance deadline for bell leak standards. A bell is a device
at the top of a blast furnace that prevents gases from escaping
as raw materials are added, and the bell seal is the part of the
bell that keeps the furnace airtight. The 2024 Rule established
a schedule for testing and replacing bell seals every time a
small bell releases a visible emission or when a large bell
consistently exceeds an opacity threshold. EPA subsequently
received new information, including that even new bells could
produce visible emissions, which showed that the 2024 Rule
would require more frequent and operationally disruptive
testing and seal replacements than anticipated. EPA reasonably
determined that steel mills “would likely be unable to comply
with the [bell leak] standards” by the original deadline. Id.
EPA likewise concluded that steel mills could not comply
with the 2024 Rule’s requirement for furnace monitoring by the
original deadline. The 2024 Rule required steel mills to take
15
opacity readings from more locations at the structures housing
the blast furnaces and basic oxygen process furnaces. The
regulatory text required that readings be “made separately at
each [structure] opening.” 2024 Rule, 89 Fed. Reg. at 23324.
The preamble to the 2024 Rule, however, set forth a different
approach and allowed steel mills to take readings from the one
opening with the highest opacity. After considering
information about the difficulty of taking simultaneous
readings as required by the regulatory text, EPA reasonably
concluded that the ambiguity about how to measure furnace
emissions justified the extended deadline “given the need for
sources and the EPA to work through how compliance will be
achieved.” J.A. 840 (response to comments).
We next assess the three standards with two-year
compliance deadlines: unplanned bleeder valve opening
operational limits, slag processing opacity limits, and beaching
work practices. EPA explained that the two-year deadlines
rested on an assumption that facilities would need to make only
modest changes in equipment or operations to comply. EPA
identified problems with this assumption and reasonably
extended the compliance deadlines.
The 2024 Rule capped the total number of unplanned
bleeder valve openings. EPA based the limit on the highest
number of unplanned openings observed at the five best
performing steel mills. But the 2024 Rule based the limit on
unplanned openings observed only for bleeder valves not
routed through an emission-control device. Because the 2024
Rule counted all unplanned openings towards the limit,
including those that are routed through a control device, EPA
concluded that the limit is “unachievable until a revision is
made.”4 Final Rule, 90 Fed. Reg. at 55685. The 2024 Rule also
4
To the extent EPA determined that the operational limit for
unplanned bleeder valve openings (or any other standard) would be
16
specified work practices for reducing emissions from
unplanned openings, including requiring steel mills to install
monitoring devices. But EPA later received information
showing that these work practices would be insufficient to
achieve compliance with the operational limit or infeasible to
implement. Relying on this information, EPA reasonably
concluded that some steel mills “likely will need more than two
years to comply” with the unplanned bleeder valve standard.
Id.
Similarly, for slag processing and handling, the 2024 Rule
imposed an opacity limit of ten percent. Slag is a furnace waste
product that is placed in open pits to cool before removal.
Moving slag releases particulate matter into the air. The ten
percent limit rested on EPA’s understanding that this level was
achievable using work practices described in the 2024 Rule.
After the rulemaking, however, EPA received data showing the
opacity measurements EPA relied on were erroneously low, as
well as information showing that the new work practices might
be ineffective, unsafe, and contribute to high opacity readings.
EPA reasonably concluded that some steel mills “likely will
need more than two years” to comply with the opacity limit
given the incompatibility between the work practices and
lowering the opacity levels. Id. at 55686.
Finally, the 2024 Rule required work practices for
mitigating beaching emissions. Beaching occurs when molten
iron from a blast furnace is dumped on the ground because it
impracticable to comply with on any timeline, EPA’s deadline
revisions are nonetheless consistent with the Clean Air Act. The
Act’s three-year limit on compliance deadlines contemplates
situations where expeditious compliance cannot be achieved in three
years or less. See 42 U.S.C. § 7412(i)(3)(A). It was reasonable and
consistent with the statute for EPA to extend the deadlines without
exceeding the statutory maximum.
17
cannot be loaded into the basic oxygen process furnace. The
2024 Rule required steel mills to have enclosures for beaching
or use carbon dioxide to suppress fumes emitted as the molten
iron cools. After the rulemaking, EPA was made aware that
some facilities would need to relocate where beaching takes
place in order to build enclosures or install suppression
systems, assuming these work practices could be implemented
at all. EPA reasonably concluded that steel mills would need
more than two years to make these changes.
In the Final Rule, EPA relied on specific concerns raised
in the reconsideration petitions and post-Interim Rule
comments and identified technical challenges that
demonstrated compliance would be impracticable by the
original deadlines. EPA did not need to use magic words to
explain that the new deadlines would “provide for compliance
as expeditiously as practicable.” 42 U.S.C. § 7412(i)(3)(A).
The agency’s analysis makes clear that compliance would not
be practicable in under three years. See Constellation Mystic
Power, LLC v. FERC, 45 F.4th 1028, 1055 (D.C. Cir. 2022)
(“Ordinarily, we will uphold an agency decision where the
agency’s path may be reasonably discerned, even if the
decision is of less than ideal clarity.”) (cleaned up). Because
EPA was required to set a deadline, it was reasonable for EPA
to set the compliance period for three years.5 We accordingly
hold that the deadline extensions were reasonable and
consistent with the Clean Air Act.
2.
Petitioners’ last substantive challenge is to the fenceline
monitoring deadline. The 2024 Rule required compliance with
5
EPA extended the deadlines to three years after the 2024 Rule’s
April 3, 2024, promulgation date. The new deadlines are just within
three years of the 2024 Rule’s June 3, 2024, effective date.
18
the fenceline monitoring requirement within one year after the
promulgation of a testing method or two years after
promulgation of the 2024 Rule, whichever came later. EPA
updated that deadline to the later of one year after promulgation
of a testing method or April 3, 2027. Because the record before
us does not indicate that EPA promulgated a testing method by
April 3, 2026, steel mills must comply with the fenceline
monitoring requirement within one year of when EPA
eventually promulgates a testing method under both the 2024
Rule and the new deadline. We do not address the substantive
reasonableness of the fenceline monitoring deadline because
with the passage of time the deadline under the 2024 Rule and
the Final Rule is the same. There is accordingly no meaningful
relief we can give by setting aside the new fenceline monitoring
deadline.
IV.
That leaves petitioners’ procedural challenge to the
Interim Rule. Petitioners argue the Interim Rule is procedurally
invalid because EPA lacked good cause to forgo notice and
comment. This challenge is now moot. Even assuming EPA
lacked good cause for the Interim Rule, we could provide no
meaningful relief for that alleged defect because EPA later
promulgated the Final Rule after notice and comment.
The normal remedy for a claim that an agency failed to
follow rulemaking procedures is to give the agency “an
opportunity to correct the procedural defect and promulgate a
new rule.” Georgetown Univ. Hosp. v. Bowen, 821 F.2d 750,
758 (D.C. Cir. 1987). It is undisputed that EPA followed those
procedures in promulgating the Final Rule, which affirmed the
deadlines and EPA’s reasoning in the Interim Rule. See Little
Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter & Paul Home v. Pennsylvania,
140 S. Ct. 2367, 2386 & n.14 (2020) (holding that an agency’s
19
“request for comment” in an interim final rule “satisfies the
APA’s rulemaking requirements”).
Under these circumstances, petitioners have nothing to
gain from a decision vacating the Interim Rule.6 This is
especially true because we have rejected petitioners’
substantive challenges to the Interim and Final Rules.
Procedural challenges to rules are moot if the agency has
promulgated the same rule after following the required
procedures. See Ass’n of Am. Physicians & Surgeons, 746 F.3d
at 472–73 (dismissing a procedural challenge to an interim
final rule because it was “superseded by a rule promulgated
after notice and comment”); Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. U.S.
Nuclear Regul. Comm’n, 680 F.2d 810, 813–14 (D.C. Cir.
1982) (dismissing a procedural challenge due to the agency’s
“repromulgation of the rule after providing notice and
opportunity for comment”). We therefore dismiss petitioners’
procedural challenge to the Interim Rule.
***
We dismiss petitioners’ challenge to the fenceline
monitoring deadline and their procedural challenge to the
Interim Rule. We otherwise deny the petitions for review
6
Petitioners attempt to resist this straightforward conclusion by
pointing to American Maritime Association v. United States, 766
F.2d 545 (D.C. Cir. 1985). In that case, we declined to dismiss a
challenge to an interim final rule notwithstanding the issuance of a
final rule because the substantive legal challenges were “equally
applicable to the final rule and the interim rule.” Id. at 554 n.14; see
also Clean Fuels All. Am. v. EPA, 169 F.4th 307, 311–12 (D.C. Cir.
2026) (discussing American Maritime). The proposition is plainly of
no support to petitioners’ procedural challenge, which they assert
only with respect to the Interim Rule and not the Final Rule.
20
because EPA’s revised deadlines for steel mill emission
standards are reasonable and consistent with the Clean Air Act.
So ordered.