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EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers' proposed rule to repeal the Obama administration's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction policy and reinstate George W. Bush-era standards for determining the law's scope are signaling that they will invoke deference to states' authority over waters in a pending rule to create a new jurisdiction standard.
As EPA is taking steps to hone the focus of Administrator Scott Pruitt's Superfund reform effort, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) is offering an outline of recommendations for improving the program's implementation, including limiting the use of the National Priorities List (NPL), prioritizing the program for funding and revising metrics for determining cleanup success.
Senate appropriators are echoing their House counterparts in objecting to the scale of proposed cuts in the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts for EPA in fiscal year 2018 and sending signals that they are likely to restore funding to popular agency programs.
EPA is said to be considering two former state environment officials for top slots leading its water and general counsel's office: Matthew Z. Leopold, a former Florida official for the general counsel spot, and David Ross, a former Wisconsin official to head the water office, sources say.
EPA is using both the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to delay Obama-era regulations -- a tactic to buy time for the Trump administration to rewrite the rules -- but environmentalists' challenges to those stalling tactics could be first legal tests to the bounds of EPA's authority to administratively stay its rules.
Three lawsuits in which environmentalists are challenging EPA administrative delays of Obama-era regulations are likely to provide the first legal tests of the agency's authority to stay its rules using administrative tools -- as EPA's use of the statutes has little prior legal precedent and could be legally risky.
EPA has named Dennis Lee Forsgren, a former industry lobbyist, Capitol Hill aide and NASA official in the Bush administration, as its new deputy assistant administrator for water, continuing a trend seen in several other offices of appointing deputies who do not require Senate confirmation before nominating office chiefs who require approval.
EPA is poised to call for new experts to join two of its advisory committees, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and Science Advisory Board (SAB), though the nearly two-month delay in doing so may mean that CASAC, which reviews the science underlying EPA's air quality standards, will be without new members before current members leave in the fall, effectively grinding that group's work to a halt.
EPA on June 22 met its one-year deadline under the overhauled Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for issuing a number of final rules creating new procedures for assessing the risks of existing chemicals -- but the release of the regulations is just the start of what's expected to be protracted legal and administrative fights between the agency and environmentalists over the policies.
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers' proposed rule to repeal the Obama administration's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction policy and reinstate George W. Bush-era standards for determining the law's scope are signaling that they will invoke deference to states' authority over waters in a pending rule to create a new jurisdiction standard.
EPA has released the three “framework” rules to implement statutory changes to address “existing” chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), though the agency scaled back the final versions of the rules, underscoring industry's influence while drawing sharp criticisms from environmentalists, who suggested they will sue.
Some states and environmentalists are faulting EPA's secrecy over the work of its internal “task force” crafting a report to Congress on how to ease implementation of agency ozone standards, with states saying they are excluded from the effort and environmentalists fearing that the report will lead to weakening of the standards.
Exclusive news, hot documents, and timely updates on legislation and litigation over EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers' joint Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule.
