EPA’s Unprecedented Blanket Enforcement ‘Discretion’ Surprises Industry

EPA’s sweeping new enforcement “discretion” guidance allowing facilities to indefinitely deter routine civil compliance actions due to the coronavirus pandemic has no precedent in agency history, observers say, and was a surprise for many attorneys representing industrial facilities covered by the blanket guidance. “While EPA says this unprecedented step back from generations of protections is somehow related to the crisis, it has offered little evidence to back that up,” says American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC) Executive Vice President Thomas Oppel,...