Sponsors (9)
The bill gives states more flexibility to exclude wildfire and prescribed‑burn monitoring data and strengthens transparency and regional modeling, at the trade‑off of potentially weakening public‑health protections, reducing incentives to cut emissions, and increasing implementation burdens and legal uncertainty.
State air agencies and Governors can exclude air-monitoring data caused by wildfires or prescribed risk‑reduction actions, helping prevent nonattainment designations and related sanctions for states.
EPA must run regional air‑quality modeling when pollution events involve multiple States, producing more accurate, consistent cross‑boundary analyses.
The bill requires EPA to maintain a public, monthly‑updated website tracking petitions and exclusion decisions, increasing transparency for communities and stakeholders.
Urban and rural residents and health systems may face greater health risks because expanding allowable exclusions to include prescribed burns could make it easier to omit pollution data and delay regulatory actions that protect public health.
Residents and regulators could see weaker incentives for emissions reductions because allowing exclusions to avoid sanctions may shift cleanup responsibility and increase long‑term ozone and particulate exposure.
EPA and state agencies could face higher workload and implementation costs from monthly public updates and added regional modeling requirements, potentially diverting agency resources from other priorities.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Amends the Clean Air Act to lengthen NAAQS review intervals, change SIP/FIP timelines, allow wildfire‑mitigation data exclusions, and expand CASAC membership and duties.
Introduced June 27, 2025 by Buddy Carter · Last progress June 27, 2025
Changes to the Clean Air Act change how often EPA reviews air-quality standards, shift some planning and enforcement timelines for states, and revise rules about excluding air-monitoring data tied to wildfires and wildfire-mitigation actions (like prescribed burns). The bill also increases the number of state air-agency representatives on the scientific advisory committee and requires that committee to evaluate possible public health, economic, social, or energy harms from ways of meeting air standards before a standard is set. Overall, the amendments give states more time to fix State Implementation Plans before EPA imposes a federal plan, lengthen the periodic review cycle for national air standards, create new procedures for excluding wildfire- and mitigation-related monitoring data, and add procedural requirements for EPA and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC).