TSCA Paint Dust-Lead Rule Adds To Focus On Interlocking Policies

EPA’s new rule tightening TSCA dust-lead standards for homes with lead paint is adding to a focus on how the chemicals program will drive efforts to reduce exposure to the notoriously neurotoxic metal, both directly and through indirect avenues -- such as a growing battle over the risks of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic as a replacement for lead pipes. Last week, EPA finalized its long-awaited Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) rule overhauling Trump-era dust-lead “hazard” and “clearance” levels, setting the...

Inside EPA - 11/01/2024

Wed, 2024-10-30 15:39

Quote-Unquote: PFAS in court, as is EPA’s GHG truck rule

What they’re saying. Court says total organic fluoride testing doesn’t prove PFAS presence, but : “A federal judge in the Northern District of California dismissed in part a consumer class action, finding that plaintiffs’ total organic fluorine testing was insufficient to demonstrate that defendant’s product contained per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. . . . Plaintiffs based their allegation of PFAS contamination on total organic fluorine (TOF) analysis, which it claimed was the ‘gold standard’ for determining the presence of PFAS in...

LNG Backers Renew Press For D.C. Circuit To Reverse NEPA Decision

A variety of supporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports are urging the D.C. Circuit to overturn a three-judge panel opinion vacating approval of an LNG project due to an insufficient environmental review, arguing the move will have major economic harms including a loss of jobs for disadvantaged communities located near the project. The unanimous Aug. 6 ruling is the first to vacate an LNG permit on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) grounds, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for...

WTO, Other International Groups Urge Multi-Lateral Climate Policy Steps

The World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and other top international economic organizations are urging countries to engage in multi-lateral cooperation when addressing climate change, warning that an increasing embrace of climate-related trade policies could spark trade wars. The groups in an Oct. 24 report particularly focus on carbon pricing, touting the “important role” of such measures while setting out a “common understanding of carbon pricing metrics” and also advocating for international coordination to “scale up” climate action. “Trade-related...

National Academies Seeks To Bolster Climate Change ‘Attribution’ Efforts

The National Academies Of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) is launching a new committee to advance efforts to link extreme weather events to climate change, a move that could bolster underlying support to address the challenge amid significant partisan splits on climate and clean energy policy. The effort concerns “extreme event attribution,” which seeks to quantify the impact of human-caused climate change on a specific extreme weather event. Some scientists are already conducting such attribution studies now, and environmentalists are...

DOI, USDA Drinking Water Testing Shows Limited PFAS Detections

The Interior and Agriculture departments have found only limited exceedances of EPA’s first-time PFAS drinking water standards in early testing of water systems operated by the two departments, although the testing is still ongoing, federal officials told state waste regulators recently. The test results suggest that the two largest federal land management agencies face relatively limited potential liability complying with EPA’s drinking water standards, though they may still face additional cleanup liability addressing PFAS releases at Superfund and other waste...

ALA Urges EPA To Lean On Satellite Data For Setting, Implementing NAAQS

The American Lung Association (ALA) in a new report is urging EPA to further integrate satellite data into its approach to setting and implementing federal air quality limits, in order to cover data gaps left by the absence of regulatory ground-based monitors in much of the country, although the satellite data still has some drawbacks. “More than two-thirds of the 3,143 counties and equivalent subdivisions in the U.S. lack regulatory monitors. However, the lack of monitoring does not necessarily mean...

National Academies Seeks To Bolster Climate Change ‘Attribution’ Efforts

The National Academies Of Science Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) is launching a new committee to advance efforts to link extreme weather events to climate change, a move that could bolster underlying support to address the challenge amid significant partisan splits on climate and clean energy policy. The effort concerns “extreme event attribution,” which seeks to quantify the impact of human-caused climate change on a specific extreme weather event. Some scientists are already conducting such attribution studies now, and environmentalists are...

Environmentalists Press EPA For Consistent Regional Responses On Nitrates

A coalition of 23 environmental groups is seeking to meet with EPA’s water chief to discuss and evaluate how the agency can address “widespread” nitrate pollution that is contaminating drinking water, an effort aimed in part at ensuring a consistent response from the agency’s regions as they weigh multiple “emergency” petitions seeking to address the pollution. The groups, including Food & Water Watch (F&WW), Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group and others, sent Bruno Pigott, acting assistant administrator for...

Court Sets 2028 Deadline For EPA To Complete NOx Standards Review

A federal court has entered a consent decree signed by EPA and environmental litigants requiring the agency to review and if necessary modify national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 2028, an agreement that has highlighted environmentalists’ broader concerns over the agency’s delay reviewing ozone limits. “Under this agreement, the EPA can no longer skirt its duty to address nitrogen pollution’s significant harms to people and the environment,” said Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate at the...

Court Allows Auto Group To Argue ‘New’ Legal Claims In TSCA Asbestos Suit

A three-judge 5th Circuit panel is letting stand automakers’ amicus brief opposing EPA’s landmark TSCA rule for chrysotile asbestos that EPA and public-health advocates attacked as improperly adding a host of new legal questions to the case, teeing up what could be complex arguments over which of the group’s claims are properly before the court. In a four-page order issued Oct. 25, judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit backed a prior decision from a...

EPA Eyes Outreach To Combat ‘Confusion’ From Updated Dust-Lead Rule

A top EPA toxics office official says the agency is aware of “confusion” stemming from its newly rewritten TSCA rule governing dust-lead levels in residential buildings and is tailoring its communications on the policy to clarify its new approach. “We wanted to help address that with how we wrote our communications materials, the press release and the rule itself,” Marc Edmonds, branch manager in the Existing Chemicals Risk Management Division at EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, said in...

EPA Eyes Outreach To Combat ‘Confusion’ From Updated Dust-Lead Rule

A top EPA toxics office official says the agency is aware of “confusion” stemming from its newly rewritten TSCA rule governing dust-lead levels in residential buildings and is tailoring its communications on the policy to clarify its new approach. “We wanted to help address that with how we wrote our communications materials, the press release and the rule itself,” Marc Edmonds, branch manager in the Existing Chemicals Risk Management Division at EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, said in...

Judges Appear Skeptical Of Airport’s Arguments In PFAS Enforcement Case

Appellate judges appeared doubtful during Oct. 29 oral argument that a first-in-the-nation enforcement case brought by Michigan against a commercial airport over PFAS cleanup belongs in federal court, questioning the airport’s contention that federal grants held by the airport are sufficient to meet the requirements of the federal officer removal law. In addition, one of the judges on a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit questioned the airport’s attorney on whether the court could...

EPA, Outside Groups Brace For Divergent Outcomes Of Upcoming Election

EPA staff and outside groups are bracing for widely divergent outcomes from the Nov. 5 election, with officials in a potential second Trump administration poised to significantly overhaul and scale back the agency while a possible Harris administration would be expected to build on current programs. Oil and gas groups are also preparing their deregulatory agenda amid the electoral uncertainty, while the two main presidential campaigns are offering significant contrasts on most climate- and energy-related issues. At EPA, the agency’s...

OIG finds poor state data management hinders SRF oversight

EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is warning that states are not uniformly collecting and storing their clean and drinking water state revolving loan fund (CWSRF/DWSRF) subrecipient and contractor data in structured machine-readable formats, hindering the ability to conduct adequate oversight. In an Oct. 28 management implication report , OIG charges that some states’ data is “collected and stored in paper formats or nonmachine-readable formats” that significantly limits the ability to conduct data analytics for proactive oversight of the...

High Court Schedules Arguments In Key NEPA Case Over Indirect GHGs

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Dec. 10 in a key National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) case over whether agencies must assess the indirect effects of greenhouse gas emissions in their NEPA reviews even if they lack authority to regulate those emissions. The justices’ Oct. 18 scheduling order in the case, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, et al. v. Eagle County, Colorado, et al. , came on the same day that Eagle County and environmentalists filed their reply briefs...

California Officials Appear To Push Back Offshore Wind Project Timetable

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration appears to be pushing back its projections for when the state’s first floating offshore wind energy projects will become operational -- with one advisor telling lawmakers it could take until at least 2035, well past the long-running goal of 2030 established by the administration and industry. “[T]he first 6 to 10 gigawatts [GW] of offshore wind generation will happen between 2030 and 2035, or so -- the ‘or so’ has an asterisk,” said Jana...

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