in effect
This is a presidential proclamation (Proclamation 10993, signed November 21, 2025) that grants a temporary exemption from certain federal air-quality rules for specific coke oven facilities. It invokes the President’s authority under Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act, which allows exemptions on national security grounds.
The EPA issued a rule in July 2024 (the “Coke Oven Rule,” 89 FR 55684) that imposed new emissions-control requirements on coke oven facilities, with specific compliance deadlines. This proclamation pushes every compliance deadline in that rule back by two years for the facilities listed in Annex I. During those two additional years, the listed facilities are held to the older emissions standards that applied before the 2024 rule, not the newer, stricter ones. The stated basis for the delay is that the required control technologies do not yet exist in a commercially proven or cost-effective form.
Operators of the specific coke oven facilities named in Annex I of the proclamation get two additional years before they must meet the 2024 rule’s requirements. Downstream industries that depend on metallurgical coke — primarily blast-furnace steelmakers — are indirectly affected because continued coke production is preserved during the extension period. Communities near those facilities remain subject to pre-2024 emissions standards for the duration of the exemption rather than the tighter limits the 2024 rule would have imposed.