Court Blocks EPA Soot Rollback as US Launches BioVault
A federal appeals court has unanimously rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to abandon a Biden-era rule restricting deadly soot pollution, while the U.S. Department of the Interior announced a separate partnership to create a genetic “BioVault” for more than 2,300 endangered species — two environmental stories that underscore the administration’s contrasting approach to regulation and conservation.
Court Upholds Soot Pollution Limits
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency’s bid to walk away from a 2024 standard that tightened limits on fine particle pollution, known as soot, according to AP News. The unanimous three-judge panel left in place an annual limit of 9 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter of air, tightened from the previous 12-microgram standard established more than a decade ago.
Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg, writing for the court, stated that the agency’s arguments “lack merit.” The Trump EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin had asked the appeals court last year to invalidate the rule, arguing the Biden administration had exceeded its statutory authority and failed to consider costs to businesses.
The EPA’s bid to abandon the rule came in response to a lawsuit by 25 Republican-led states and business groups seeking to block the 2024 rule. The suit was led by attorneys general from Kentucky and West Virginia.
The Guardian reported that the EPA under Biden had projected the tighter limits would prevent more than 800,000 asthma symptoms, 2,000 hospital visits, and 4,500 premature deaths annually. An EPA spokesperson said in November 2024 that the rule would cost “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars” and was not based on a full review of available science. The agency said Friday it was reviewing the court decision.
Environmental groups hailed the ruling as a victory for public health. Patrice Simms, Vice President of Healthy Communities at Earthjustice, said: “Clean air is not a luxury. The 2024 soot standard is a critical advancement for public health, projected to save thousands of lives every year. Lee Zeldin’s EPA must stop catering to polluters and must instead fulfill its mission to protect public health.”
Vijay Limaye, a climate and health scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, added: “The science has long been clear, and now the law is too. The EPA must stop stalling and deliver the clean air the Clean Air Act requires.”
US and Colossal Biosciences Partner on ‘BioVault’
In a separate development, the Department of the Interior announced on June 25 a partnership with Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences to create a genomic and biobanking archive — dubbed the “BioVault” — for species protected under the Endangered Species Act, as reported by USA Today.
The project, formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Colossal, aims to preserve genetic material from more than 2,300 plant and animal species. Living cells, reproductive tissues, and genomic DNA will be cryopreserved at Colossal’s lab in Dallas, with duplicate samples distributed across the country. Colossal will perform whole-genome sequencing and make the data freely available to researchers worldwide.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement: “America leads the world when we embrace innovation and put our best minds to work solving big challenges. This partnership brings together the scientific expertise of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the ingenuity of the private sector to develop new tools that can help recover species, preserve critical genetic resources, and strengthen the future of wildlife conservation.”
Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences, described the project as a “modern-day Noah’s Ark,” adding: “Just as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was created to preserve the genetic diversity of our food supply, this partnership aims to preserve the genetic diversity of life itself. Every species is a library of evolutionary innovation millions of years in the making. Once lost, that knowledge disappears forever.”
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Colossal is fronting the costs — described as “tens of millions of dollars” — and the agreement does not obligate federal funds. The federal government will own the biological samples.
A Tale of Two Environmental Policies
The BioVault announcement comes as the Trump administration simultaneously pursues significant rollbacks to the Endangered Species Act itself. The administration has proposed changes that would factor economic and national security considerations into habitat protection decisions, and President Trump recently convened the so-called “God Squad” to bypass ESA protections for Gulf of Mexico oil and gas drilling.
WIRED reported that Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, criticized the initiative as a “last-ditch effort.” He said: “This isn’t biodiversity preservation. We’ll only need this genetic material if the administration fails at recovering endangered species.”
Colossal Biosciences, valued at over $10 billion, is known for its de-extinction work, including producing gene-edited gray wolf pups billed as “dire wolves” in 2025 and engineering a “woolly mouse” with mammoth-like traits. The company has also partnered with the United Arab Emirates to bank genetic material from endangered species globally.
What to Watch
The D.C. Circuit ruling represents a significant legal setback for the administration’s deregulatory agenda, though the EPA could appeal to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the BioVault project raises questions about whether technological conservation can succeed without the regulatory framework needed to protect species in their natural habitats. Both stories highlight the central tension in the administration’s environmental approach: favoring private-sector innovation over government regulation, even as courts push back on deregulatory efforts.