119th CONGRESS 1st Session |
To amend the Clean Air Act to establish authority for the President to waive the requirement for an advanced manufacturing facility or a critical mineral facility to offset increased emissions of any air pollutant, and for other purposes.
December 3, 2025
Mr. Palmer introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
To amend the Clean Air Act to establish authority for the President to waive the requirement for an advanced manufacturing facility or a critical mineral facility to offset increased emissions of any air pollutant, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
This Act may be cited as the “Air Permitting Improvements to Protect National Security Act of 2025”.
SEC. 2. Supporting critical manufacturing.
Section 173 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7503) is amended—
(1) in subsection (c), by adding at the end the following:
“(3) National security waiver.—Upon application by the owner or operator of a new or modified advanced manufacturing facility or critical mineral facility (as such terms are defined in subsection (f)(2)), the President may waive, in whole or in part, any requirement that is in effect under this part for such advanced manufacturing facility or critical mineral facility to offset increased emissions of any air pollutant if the President determines it is in the national security interests of the United States to waive such requirement. The President may not delegate such a determination to any other person.”; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
“(f) Alternative requirements for advanced manufacturing facilities and critical mineral facilities.—
“(1) IN GENERAL.—The permitting authority of a State shall allow a new or modified major stationary source that is an advanced manufacturing facility or a critical mineral facility to offset emissions from such source by alternative or innovative means under the following conditions:
“(A) The source demonstrates to the satisfaction of the permitting authority of the State that it has used all reasonable means to obtain and utilize offsets, as determined on an annual basis, for the emissions increases beyond allowable levels, that all available offsets are being used, and that sufficient offsets are not available to the source.
“(B) The source will comply with an alternative measure, imposed by the permitting authority, designed to offset any emission increases beyond permitted levels not directly offset by the source. In lieu of imposing any alternative offset measures, the permitting authority may impose an emissions fee to be paid to such authority of a State which shall be an amount no greater than 1.5 times the average cost of stationary source control measures adopted in that area during the previous 3 years. The permitting authority shall utilize the fees in a manner that maximizes the emissions reductions in that area.
“(2) DEFINITIONS.—In this subsection:
“(A) ADVANCED MANUFACTURING FACILITY.—The term ‘advanced manufacturing facility’ means a facility the primary purpose of which is the manufacturing of semiconductors or semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
“(B) CRITICAL MINERAL FACILITY.—The term ‘critical mineral facility’ means a facility primary purpose of which is the extraction, processing, refining, or milling of a critical mineral (as designated by the Secretary of the Interior).”.