Senate environment committee holds a hearing Tuesday on Justin Schwab, the nominee to run EPA’s air office

Mr. Schwab, a senior adviser to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and a former deputy general counsel at the agency, would oversee the Clean Air Act programs behind California’s vehicle, smog and air-quality plans.

By Rosalind Achterberg

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will question Justin Schwab on Tuesday morning about his nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, the part of the agency that writes and enforces most federal Clean Air Act rules, including the vehicle and smog standards that matter most to California.

The hearing is set for 10:30 a.m. Eastern, 7:30 a.m. Pacific, in Room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, according to the committee’s notice. Mr. Schwab is the only witness. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the West Virginia Republican who leads the committee, called the hearing on Nov. 3.

Who the nominee is

President Trump sent Mr. Schwab’s nomination to the Senate on Sept. 28 to be an assistant administrator of the EPA, replacing Aaron Szabo, who had led the air office since his confirmation in July 2025 and left the agency in October, according to the nomination record and Inside EPA. An EPA spokeswoman confirmed to Politico in September that Mr. Schwab was the administration’s choice for the air office.

Mr. Schwab, a Washington lawyer, served as the EPA’s deputy general counsel from 2017 to 2019, during Mr. Trump’s first term, and later as general counsel of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He rejoined the EPA in July as a senior adviser to Mr. Zeldin, E&E News reported. He founded CGCN Law, a firm focused on environmental, energy and administrative law; practiced administrative law at BakerHostetler; and clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Utah Supreme Court, according to his Federalist Society biography. He holds a law degree from Yale and a Ph.D. in classics from the University of California, Berkeley.

“We are excited to have Justin return to EPA and look forward to having him on the team as the agency continues to advance the president’s agenda under Administrator [Lee] Zeldin’s leadership,” an EPA spokeswoman, Carolyn Holran, told E&E News in July. “His years of experience and expertise will be an asset to do so.”

Politico reported that Mr. Schwab was thanked in the author’s note to the EPA chapter of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s transition plan.

The administration’s agenda for the office

Whoever runs the air office will carry out, and defend in court, the largest pieces of the administration’s environmental agenda. The most consequential is the final rule, published in February and effective April 20, that rescinded the EPA’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and with it every federal greenhouse gas standard for cars, trucks and engines.

The administration presents that rule as a matter of law and cost. In the EPA’s announcement, the agency said it had concluded that Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act “does not provide statutory authority” for vehicle standards aimed at global climate change, citing the Supreme Court’s decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. EPA, and that a decision of that magnitude “lies solely with Congress.” The EPA estimated the repeal would save Americans more than $1.3 trillion and said it would make vehicles more affordable and restore consumer choice.

“The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law, returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans and advancing the American Dream,” Mr. Zeldin said.

California disputes that reading. Attorney General Rob Bonta helped lead a coalition of 24 states, cities and counties that challenged the repeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on March 19, in a case captioned Massachusetts v. EPA. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced the suit under the headline “California is taking Donald Trump to court for breaking the law to put polluter profits before American lives.”

What it means for California

No state has more riding on the air office. Its programs include the national ambient air quality standards for ozone and fine particles, the review of state implementation plans, mobile-source and fuel rules and the decisions on California’s requests to set its own vehicle standards. The South Coast Air Basin and the San Joaquin Valley remain among the country’s worst areas for ozone, and both depend on federal approval of state and local clean-air plans.

Several of those questions are already in court or under deadlines. The Inquirer reported on Nov. 2 that the D.C. Circuit agreed to expedite the EPA’s appeal of two injunctions protecting six California waivers, part of the dispute over whether Congress could overturn the waivers with Congressional Review Act resolutions, which Mr. Trump signed in June 2025. And in October, the EPA agreed to a proposed consent decree setting deadlines through 2030 to act on California air-quality submissions dating to 2018. The air office would carry out that schedule.

For the administration, the stakes are framed as affordability and regulatory certainty: lower vehicle prices for families and businesses and fewer compliance costs for manufacturers. For California regulators, who have long used federal waivers to set tougher standards, the stakes are the state’s ability to meet federal ozone deadlines in its most polluted basins.

What comes next

Both of California’s senators, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, Democrats,, sit on the committee. Republicans hold the majority on the panel and in the Senate. After the hearing, the committee can vote on whether to report the nomination to the full Senate, where a simple majority is needed for confirmation.

The Inquirer asked the committee’s majority and minority press offices, the EPA’s Office of Public Affairs, the California Air Resources Board and Mr. Padilla’s office for comment on Monday. None had responded by publication.