A proposed consent decree in a San Francisco lawsuit would set deadlines through 2030 for EPA to act on California clean-air submissions dating to 2018.
The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to a timetable for deciding scores of overdue California air-pollution plans, some of which have waited since 2018 for a federal answer, under a proposed settlement of a lawsuit filed in San Francisco.
The proposed consent decree, published in the Federal Register on Oct. 22 (91 FR 66698), would resolve Our Children’s Earth Foundation v. Zeldin, No. 3:25-cv-08994, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It would require the EPA to take final action on every California state implementation plan submission still at issue in the case by Dec. 15, 2030, in batches due on six dates: Dec. 15, 2026; Dec. 15, 2027; Dec. 15, 2028; June 15, 2029; Dec. 15, 2029; and Dec. 15, 2030.
The public has until Nov. 23 to comment, under docket EPA-HQ-OGC-2026-9077 on Regulations.gov. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA or the Justice Department may withdraw from the deal if comments show it is “inappropriate, improper, inadequate, or inconsistent with the requirements of the Act.”
What the lawsuit says
Our Children’s Earth Foundation, an environmental nonprofit, sued on Oct. 19, 2025, alleging that the agency had failed to perform a non-discretionary duty: acting on California’s plan submissions within the deadlines the Clean Air Act sets. Its complaint said at least 136 submissions were past the law’s one-year deadline for a decision, E&E News reported when the suit was filed. They include rules from the California Air Resources Board and from regional air districts around the state covering ships, motor vehicles and a range of industries.
State implementation plans are the machinery of the Clean Air Act. California and its air districts write the rules that are supposed to bring regions into line with federal air-quality standards; the EPA’s approval makes those rules federally enforceable, and a disapproval can start the clock on sanctions or a federal plan. Until the EPA acts, a local rule can be in force under state law while its federal status remains unsettled, which matters to the businesses that must comply and to residents who can sue to enforce federal requirements.
For the members and staff of the foundation, the complaint said, the delays “create doubt and concern” about whether they are breathing illegal levels of pollution and whether federal intervention is needed, according to E&E News.
What the decree would and would not do
The decree is about timing. It does not tell the EPA whether to approve or reject any California rule. Under Section 110(k) of the Act, a final action can be a full or partial approval or a disapproval, and that judgment remains with the agency.
For some submissions the schedule names a specific deadline. For the rest it requires the EPA to act on a minimum number of submissions by each date. The agency may also clear more of the backlog while the case is pending; if it does, the notice says, the parties may “slightly adjust” the decree to cover only the plans still outstanding, and the EPA does not intend to publish a new notice in that event.
The notice was signed by Gautam Srinivasan, an associate general counsel at the EPA. The contact for the case is Catherine Schluter in the regional counsel’s office of EPA Region 9, which is headquartered in San Francisco.
The administration’s view of deadline suits
The settlement arrives as the Trump administration has said it will not use legal settlements to set environmental policy. “Outside activist groups should not dictate EPA’s agenda or federal environmental policy,” an EPA spokesperson told the watchdog group Open the Books this year. “The Trump Administration is keenly aware of concerns with sue-and-settle practices and commits to not engage in them.”
That statement went on to say the agency would set policy “based on its statutory mandates and Gold Standard Science, not based on side deals with outside activist groups.” Open the Books reported that EPA attorney-fee payouts in 2025 under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act were the lowest since at least 2013.
Agreements like this one sit at the edge of that debate. Republicans in Congress have long objected to “sue and settle” arrangements, in which an agency resolves a lawsuit by agreeing to terms that critics say should go through ordinary rulemaking. Deadline cases are narrower: the duty to act is written into the statute, and the settlement fixes only when the agency must act, not what it must decide. The EPA posts such agreements for public comment on its list of proposed consent decrees.
The EPA does not comment on active litigation. When the suit was filed, E&E News noted that a planned EPA reorganization would create an Office of State Air Partnerships, intended in part to improve the working relationship between federal, state and local air regulators, and that the case could be an early test of that effort.
What it means in Congress
Oversight of the EPA and the Clean Air Act falls to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, led by Chair Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, and ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.
The Republican press office of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
The California stakes
Several California regions, including the Los Angeles basin and the San Joaquin Valley, have long struggled to meet federal ozone and fine-particle standards, and the state’s local air rules are among the most numerous in the country. A five-year schedule would give the Air Resources Board, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and other districts a firmer sense of when their rules will gain federal standing, or face a federal objection.
The first batch of decisions would be due Dec. 15, less than two months from now. Comments can be filed at Regulations.gov under docket EPA-HQ-OGC-2026-9077 until Nov. 23.
Rosalind Achterberg covers the Senate Environment and Public Works and Energy and Natural Resources committees, from permitting and water law to nominations and the federal lands that cover nearly half of California, for the Inquirer’s Energy & Environment desk. More from Rosalind Achterberg
