This week, the U.S. Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published the final rule approval for the 1997 24-hour PM2.5 standards as established under the Clean Air Act. With this rule approval designation, U.S. EPA also found that the San Joaquin Valley is in attainment with the 1997 24-hour standard. The standard requires that PM2.5 readings maintain below 65 micrograms/m3 in a 24-hour span. The 1997 standard is one of four major standards under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) that the Air District must be in attainment with, or be implementing rules to help achieve attainment by specific dates. The Air District originally failed to meet the December 2015 deadline for attainment designation as previously established, and was forced to develop more stringent rules in order to achieve the secondary attainment deadline of December of 2020. Several Air District rules targeting agriculture were developed as a result of this standard, and the standard’s reassessment. With help from the Association, and many other agricultural associations, rules against the industry were limited to only the ones that could achieve the most emissions reductions. This is a significant achievement for the local Air District, and also further highlights the reductions achieved by voluntary and incentive based agricultural programs in the Valley.