Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

13. Environmental Protection Agency · Minor

Clarify the relationship between New Source Review and Title V

Done

427 13. Environmental Protection Agency

“Clarify the relationship between New Source Review and Title V to ensure that Title V is used only as intended by Congress.”

What has happened

  1. Done

    EPA finalized RIN 2060-AW77, the rulemaking the agenda entry announced, and set the relationship in regulation. The amended definition of "applicable requirement" (40 CFR 70.2 and 71.2) provides that where a preconstruction permit is issued with public notice and the opportunity for comment and judicial review, its terms "establish and define" the implementation plan's requirements for the activities it authorizes; EPA's own review of a proposed permit "will not evaluate whether applicable requirements ... were correctly established" (70.8(c)(1)); and a petition claiming one was incorrectly established "will not present grounds for the Administrator's objection" (70.12(a)(2)). The preamble rests this on what title V is for: it "is not designed to authorize or require permitting authorities to second-guess prior NSR decisions", and was enacted "to identify and consolidate" requirements set elsewhere and assure compliance with them. That is the Quote's clarification, made in the direction of keeping title V to what Congress intended. The limited NSR review that survives (supplemental monitoring, a SIP that itself directs further definition through title V, and NSR permits issued without public notice) is the rule's own account of the boundary, not a gap in it. Dated from publication; the rule is effective 2026-10-26.

  2. Attempted

    The 2026 Unified Agenda carries RIN 2060-AW77, "Clarifying the Scope of 'Applicable Requirements' under State Operating Permit Programs and the Federal Operating Permit Program" (EPA/OAR), at Final Rule Stage, CFR citation 40 CFR parts 70 and 71, with a final rule timetabled for 07/2026. Its abstract is this ask in EPA's own words: the action clarifies "the extent to which other Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements, including emission control requirements established under the New Source Review preconstruction permitting program … may be reviewed, modified, and/or implemented through the title V permitting and petition process." The proposal it would finalize was published on 2024-01-09 (89 FR 1150), before the evidence window and by the previous administration, and no rule has published since; an agenda entry is `attempted` and never more (playbook §3b).

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Corrected 2026-09-01. The 2026-08-27 search recorded not started on a Federal Register negative — “no rulemaking on the relationship between New Source Review and Title V”. The negative was taken from the wrong document: only entries needing a Regulatory Flexibility analysis are printed in the Federal Register agenda, and 2060-AW77’s own page says Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: No, RIN Data Printed in the FR: No. The full agenda on reginfo.gov carries it. The stale event has been replaced, not appended to.
  • Direction, checked before leveling: the 2024 proposal this RIN would finalize “clarifies the limited situations in which requirements under the New Source Review (NSR) preconstruction permitting program would be reviewed using the EPA’s unique title V oversight authorities”, and clarifies that general-duty-clause requirements are not applicable requirements at all (Federal Register document 2023-27759). It narrows Title V’s reach, which is the direction the Quote asks for. The document is dated 2024-01-09 and so is outside the evidence window; it is recorded here in prose rather than as an Evidence item.
  • Same RIN moves #1092 (Title V objection petitions). EPA’s active New Source Review reforms (#1089) sit inside NSR and do not reach across to the operating permit program.

Resolved in the review of 2026-09-27. The done event was first written from the Federal Register abstract alone. The review read the rule’s full text (91 FR 61026–61072, through the Federal Register API’s text rendition) and rewrote the note on it. The three open questions: the final rule keeps the proposal’s direction, and the preamble spells out the few situations where NSR issues are still reached through title V without widening them; the rule prints RIN 2060-AW77, the agenda’s RIN (the “2060-AV61” given in the first reading did not come from the rule); and it is effective 2026-10-26, with the Status dated from publication. #1092 moves on the same rule, because its petition provision is in the regulatory text.

Action
other
Object
New Source Review and Title V permitting programs
ID
1093