EPA OKs air pollution rule that Pa.’s U.S. Steel called unachievable

By Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is allowing implementation of a 2024 hazardous air pollution rule that imposed new emission control and monitoring requirements on facilities like U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works , a few months after seeking to delay and rework it.

The hazardous air pollution rule called for fenceline monitoring for benzene to begin this year and for stricter limits on air emissions to go into effect in January 2026.

But citing opposition from companies that operate coke ovens and integrated steelmaking plants subject to the rule, the EPA in July delayed its implementation by two years, until July 2027.

At the time, the agency said it had “serious concerns that, without the installation of additional controls