24 States Sue E.P.A. Over Climate Change Decision

Climate: 24 states sue EPA over wood stove carbon rule rollback

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Twenty-four Republican-led states filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday to block a rule that ended carbon-emission waivers for wood-burning residential stoves.

The lawsuit, submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argues the agency exceeded its legal authority when it withdrew a 2015 policy that had exempted small wood heaters from mandatory greenhouse-gas reporting.

The dispute marks the first court test of the Trump administration’s effort to delete climate-related requirements for household appliances, a policy shift announced last month that drew objections from environmental groups and Democratic state attorneys general.

The EPA published the rollback on 4 March in the Federal Register. It removed automatic exclusions for any appliance that emits more than 100 tons of carbon dioxide annually, a threshold most wood stoves exceed within weeks of winter use. Agency officials said the change corrected “regulatory over-reach” and saved manufacturers an estimated $52 million per year in avoided testing and paperwork.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told reporters the EPA had imposed “a back-door ban on affordable heat” by exposing small stove makers to Clean Air Act penalties. “Congress never voted to regulate family fireplaces as power plants,” Paxton said outside the federal courthouse in Austin.

West Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming joined the complaint. The coalition represents roughly 44 percent of the U.S. population and more than half of the nation’s residential wood-fuel consumption, according to Energy Information Administration data cited in the filing.

The states asked the court to issue an emergency stay that would freeze enforcement while the case proceeds. They contended the EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by finalizing the repeal without allowing adequate public comment and by “arbitrarily” removing cost savings the agency itself had identified in 2022.

EPA spokesperson Remmington Belford declined to comment on pending litigation but reiterated the agency’s position that the repealed rule was “redundant” because large industrial sources already account for residential emissions in national inventories.

Wood stoves heat about 12 million U.S. homes, the lawsuit said. Rural households rely on cord wood and pellets for 68 percent of primary space heating in Vermont and 49 percent in Montana, the states noted, citing Census Bureau figures.

The EPA’s own regulatory impact analysis projected the rollback would add 1.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2030, an amount equal to the yearly tailpipe emissions from 400,000 passenger cars. The agency dismissed the increase as “de minimis” compared with total national output of 5.7 billion tons.

Environmental groups condemned the lawsuit. “These attorneys general are defending the right to pollute neighborhoods with soot and climate-warming gases,” Aliya Haq, vice-president of the Climate Policy Alliance, told reporters on a conference call. The alliance said it would seek intervenor status to defend the tougher standard.

The American Lung Association filed a separate motion on 28 March supporting the EPA’s original repeal, arguing wood smoke contains fine particulate matter linked to asthma and premature death. The association said residential stoves generate 43 percent of directly emitted black carbon in the United States, a short-lived climate pollutant that warms the atmosphere and accelerates ice melt.

Manufacturers welcomed the states’ legal challenge. “We finally have clarity that small heaters are not mini power plants,” Jack Goldman, president of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, said in an emailed statement. The trade group estimated compliance with the now-repealed rule would have raised retail prices by $340 per unit and forced 30 percent of producers overseas.

Republican lawmakers filed companion briefs in both chambers of Congress. Forty-six senators and 178 House members signed an amicus brief arguing the EPA’s carbon accounting “criminalizes ordinary Americans for heating their homes.” Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said the policy would have required “a paper-trail every time you throw a log on the fire.”

The litigation revives a decade-old policy fight. In 2015 the Obama EPA exempted residential wood heaters from greenhouse-gas reporting under the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, concluding the data offered “minimal utility” because individual appliances could not be monitored remotely. The agency left in place separate standards for particulate matter but removed carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from the list of reportable gases.

President Joe Biden’s EPA reversed course in January 2024, citing the need for “complete inventories” required under the 2021 Global Methane Pledge. The agency said better accounting could unlock federal grants for cleaner pellet stoves and heat pumps. Republicans condemned the move as an example of what they term regulatory over-reach on climate.

Background

The Clean Air Act directs the EPA to collect emissions data from facilities that release more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Congress created the threshold in 2008 to focus federal resources on power plants, refineries and factories that account for the bulk of U.S. greenhouse gases. Residential sources have traditionally escaped scrutiny because each individual unit falls far below the limit.

The wood stove debate intensified after a 2022 EPA inspector general report found the agency lacked reliable figures for household biomass combustion, a category that can swing national methane estimates by several million tons. The Biden administration used the finding to justify expanding reporting rules despite objections from farm-state lawmakers who feared livestock operations could be next.

Republican attorneys general have filed 47 multistate lawsuits against federal environmental rules since 2021, challenging regulations ranging from vehicle tailpipe standards to power-plant carbon caps. Courts have issued mixed rulings: last June the Supreme Court limited EPA authority to set carbon targets for existing utilities, yet in December an appeals court upheld stricter ozone standards opposed by industry.

What’s Next

The D.C. Circuit set an expedited briefing schedule on Monday, ordering the EPA to respond to the states’ stay request by 21 April and scheduling oral arguments for early June. A three-judge panel yet to be named will decide whether to freeze enforcement while the full case proceeds, a process that typically takes six to twelve months.

The outcome could determine whether the federal government includes household appliances in future national emissions commitments due under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Negotiators will submit an updated climate inventory to the United Nations by April 2025, and any gap in wood stove data may complicate Biden administration pledges to cut greenhouse gases 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.