Administrator Zeldin Takes Action to Decrease Risk of Future Catastrophic Wildfires (“Exceptional Events”)
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin took action to decrease the risk of future catastrophic wildfires. Specifically, he directed EPA staff to revisit the Obama-Biden Administration’s Exceptional Events rulemaking and prioritize the allowance of prescribed fires within State and Tribal Implementation Plans (SIPs/TIPs). This announcement comes in the wake of expeditiously completing the agency’s largest wildfire hazardous material removal effort in its history responding to fires in Los Angeles County.
“The Trump Administration is tackling our emergency response duties head on and taking action to reduce the likelihood of these devastating disasters in the future,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin. “EPA plays an important role in ensuring the best forest management practices while protecting human health and the environment. Revisiting this rulemaking will ensure that EPA doesn’t get in the way of making preventative efforts like prescribed burns easier to protect communities.”
Prescribed fires are necessary to protect communities from catastrophic wildfires like the ones that caused untold damage to residents and businesses in Los Angeles. When EPA reviews SIPs and TIPs, EPA will work to ensure states and other entities that work within those states can use prescribed fires to properly manage their forests, without being unfairly penalized when it comes to assessing their air quality.
Administrator Zeldin also directed the EPA Office of Air and Radiation to convene meetings with state and tribal air agencies and state, local, and federal forest managers to evaluate ways to ease unnecessary burdens that prevent prescribed fires. These unnecessary burdens are related to, but not limited to, Exceptional Events, Regional Haze, Interstate Transport, and International Transport.
This was announced in conjunction with a number of historic actions to advance President Trump’s Day One executive orders and Power the Great American Comeback. Combined, these announcements represent the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in the history of the United States. While accomplishing EPA’s core mission of protecting the environment, the agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.