The Environmental Protection Agency won’t set stricter federal limits on industrial soot pollution, setting up a challenge for the incoming Biden administration if it seeks to tighten the standards to match what the agency’s scientists have said would protect public health.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the decision Monday, making official a proposal from April to retain the current national standard for fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, commonly known as soot. The action likely locks in the current standard for at least many months, if not several years, even if the Biden team attempts to reverse it.