On Thursday, the Senate approved an effort to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency rule related to the Clean Air Act that aimed to limit seven of the most hazardous air pollutants emitted by heavy industry.
The 52-46 party-line vote was the first time in the Clean Air Act’s 55-year history that Congress attempted to weaken the landmark environmental law.
Senate Republicans used the Congressional Review Act to overturn the regulation, which was approved by the Biden administration in 2024.
The joint resolution now moves to the Republican-controlled House, where it is also expected to pass.
The rule related to the Clean Air Act was finalized last year to close a loophole that required all “major” sources of seven hazardous air pollutants to reduce their emissions by the maximum achievable amount, a policy known as “Once in, Always In.”
The rule requires that industrial facilities, which are typically chemical plants, oil refineries, and other factories classified as “major” sources of toxic air pollution, always maintain strict pollution controls. Even if they comply and reduce pollution levels, those facilities will always be labeled as “major” sources under the rule.
The Trump administration killed the rule during President Trump’s first term, but the EPA, under former President Joe Biden, finalized and updated it in September. According to the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, the rule required 1,800 facilities across the country to tighten air pollution controls to comply with the law.
The seven pollutants in question are:
- Alkylated lead compounds
- Polycyclic organic matter (POM)
- Mercury
- Hexachlorobenzene
- Polychlorinated biphenyls(PCB)
- 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofurans (TCDF)
- 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin
Several Republican lawmakers have attempted to overturn the rule. Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah introduced the resolution, which passed on Thursday. Curtis claimed that the rule discouraged companies from deploying new pollution-reducing technology.
“The rule put forward by the previous administration stifled progress,” Curtis said in a statement following the resolution’s passage. “It warned businesses that no matter how much they invested to reduce harmful emissions, they would be punished with permanent red tape. That is not good science, not good governance, and certainly not good for the environment. My resolution reinstates a common-sense incentive: “If you clean up, you get credit for it.”
Several environmental groups, however, condemned the move.
“Today, I am more concerned about children’s health than ever before,” Melody Reis, director of federal policy for Mom’s Clean Air Force, said in a statement to CBS News.
“Just now, Senate Republicans voted to give a few thousand of the nation’s largest industrial polluters a simple way to emit toxic air pollutants linked to cancer, birth defects, and brain damage.”
They voted to allow chemical manufacturers, pesticide manufacturers, refineries, and other facilities to turn off pollution controls for the most dangerous air pollutants known to humans, including dioxins, mercury, and PCBs. This will put our children, and all of us, in grave danger. “It is a shameful and completely unnecessary move.”
Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, which is made up of former EPA employees, stated in his own statement that “Congress should be strengthening EPA’s ability to protect the public from mercury, benzene, and other dangerous emissions, not stripping away rules that hold polluters accountable.”
The vote represents a significant victory for the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries, which had been lobbying against the “Once in, Always In” rule for some time. After Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group, wrote to him, calling the rule “burdensome,” and listing it as one of several environmental regulations that are “strangling our economy” and should be repealed.
Since January, the Trump administration has made several attempts to weaken the EPA through deregulation and staff reductions.
In an interview with “Face the Nation” last week, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin argued that the rollbacks will have no negative impact on health or the environment.