Industry Says TSCA Requires OSHA To Regulate Workers’ Chemical Risks

Trade groups are asking a federal appeals court to hold that the reformed TSCA gave OSHA, not EPA, primary responsibility to regulate any “unreasonable risks” to workers from toxic substances, seeking to scrap the agency’s approach to chemical-specific rules that has focused primarily -- sometimes exclusively -- on workplace dangers. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is “not a worker protection law,” an array of industry groups wrote in their joint opening brief to the U.S. Circuit Court for the...

Over Industry Objection, EPA Ends ‘Defense’ In Oil & Gas Sector NESHAP

Over strong industry objections, EPA has removed the “affirmative defense” provision from its air toxics rule for the oil and gas production, and gas transmission and storage sectors, stripping away the shield against civil penalties amid a broader fight over the future of such defenses in state air plans, air permits and other EPA air rules. In a Federal Register notice slated for publication Oct. 22, EPA removes the affirmative defense language from the National Emission Standards for Hazardous...

Automakers’ Claims Set Off Clash Over Scope Of Asbestos Rule Challenge

EPA and anti-asbestos advocates are clashing with automakers over whether litigation over the agency’s landmark TSCA rule for chrysotile asbestos can delve into aspects of both the policy and the agency’s underlying risk evaluation that the group highlighted in an amicus filing but which industry petitioners in the case have so far sidestepped. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit formally accepted an Oct. 7 amicus brief from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI) in...

DOD’s New Priority Focus On Private Wells May Slow Other PFAS Cleanups

The Defense Department’s (DOD) new focus on prioritizing interim PFAS cleanups at affected private drinking water wells may delay other PFAS cleanups planned for potentially hundreds of military sites, according to a top DOD cleanup official. “We're going to just have to see, because we may prioritize addressing the private drinking water wells, and you may need to delay starting some” remedial investigations (RIs) at various DOD sites where the military believes there may be contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl...

Risk Policy Report - 10/22/2024

Mon, 2024-10-21 16:33

Groups Urge D.C. Circuit To Deny ‘Circular Logic’ In Power Plant GHG Case

Environmental groups and other supporters of EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards are attacking legal arguments made by opponents of the rule, asserting these critics are relying on “circular logic” to claim that carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not sufficiently widespread to serve as the basis for the rule’s toughest requirements. “The Court should reject Petitioners’ self-justifying theory of perpetual regulatory immunity, which is contrary to the statute, precedent, and common sense,” Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, and the...

Judges Appear Skeptical Of Environmentalists’ Challenge To LNG Review

D.C. Circuit judges appeared skeptical during Oct. 21 arguments of environmentalists’ challenge to the Energy Department’s (DOE) climate analysis of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, suggesting they believe officials sufficiently grappled with uncertainties about what would replace the project’s fuel if it were not built. Assessment of this “substitution effect” -- or whether a project’s LNG would otherwise be replaced by coal, other gas supplies, renewables, conservation efforts, or some other source -- is a crucial element of...

Court sets arguments in suit testing EPA exceptional events policy

A federal appellate court is slated to hear arguments in December over environmentalists’ challenge to EPA’s increasingly significant exceptional events policy, which allows waivers from air quality requirements due to emissions from wildfire smoke and other “exceptional” events. In an Oct. 21 order , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit said it will hear oral arguments Dec. 12 in Sierra Club v. EPA, a suit that that focuses on whether the agency lawfully reclassified the Detroit...

Inside TSCA - 10/21/2024

Mon, 2024-10-21 12:49

Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Air Act Venue Cases Over GNP, RFS Rules

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals in a trio of cases over the Clean Air Act’s venue provisions that govern when rules are “national” in scope and must be litigated in the District of Columbia Circuit, or “local” in scope and must instead be heard in regional courts. Any ruling from the court could upend the decades of precedent set by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has generally reviewed most such cases. In...

DOD’s New Priority Focus On Private Wells May Slow Other PFAS Cleanups

The Defense Department’s (DOD) new focus on prioritizing interim PFAS cleanups at affected private drinking water wells may delay other PFAS cleanups planned for potentially hundreds of military sites, according to a top DOD cleanup official. “We're going to just have to see, because we may prioritize addressing the private drinking water wells, and you may need to delay starting some” remedial investigations (RIs) at various DOD sites where the military believes there may be contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl...

Testing Haze Rules, Citizens Contest EPA’s Offshore Wind Farm Air Permit

A New Jersey citizens’ group is challenging EPA’s air permit for a planned offshore wind farm in the state, charging the project will undermine the state’s plan for complying with regional haze rules and the permit underestimates its pollution impacts -- a potential test of whether the agency is required to consider such sources in the haze program. In its Oct. 15 petition filed with the agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB), Save Long Beach Island, Inc. (SLBI), a nonprofit group...

EPA Fights Steel Sector Push To Reconsider Good Neighbor Air Rule

EPA is resisting steel sector efforts to reconsider its stayed Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate ozone rule, arguing that industry challengers lack standing to sue, were wrong to insist EPA withdraw the rule from Federal Register publication and were wrong to regard it as unworkable in the wake of several courts’ stays of underlying decisions. EPA details its arguments in an Oct. 15 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in U.S....

States Hold Stormwater Roundtable; Comments Due On TSCA Prioritization

State water regulators are scheduled to hold their annual stormwater roundtable meeting, where they will discuss best practices and propose solutions to challenges and barriers faced by regulators. Comments are due on EPA’s landmark proposal listing vinyl chloride and other substances as possible priorities for TSCA review. Also, EPA is slated to respond to industry efforts to stay its coke oven air toxics rule. Stormwater Roundtable The Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) is holding its 2024 National Stormwater Roundtable...

Comments Due On TSCA Prioritization; Exposure Society Holds Annual Meeting

The window for public input on EPA’s proposal to designate five chemicals as “high-priority” for review under TSCA, including the ubiquitous plastics ingredient vinyl chloride, closes this week. The International Society of Exposure Science (ISES) is meeting in Montreal. Prioritization Oct. 23 is the deadline for comments on EPA’s proposal to designate five chemicals as “high-priority” under the Toxic Substances Control Act -- a move that would immediately trigger years-long risk evaluations, followed by rulemakings to address any “unreasonable risks”...

Briefs Due In Suit On Power Plant GHG Rule; D.C. Circuit To Hear LNG Case

Critics of EPA’s greenhouse gas standards for power plants are filing their final substantive briefs in their high-profile D.C. Circuit challenge to the rule. Meanwhile, a three-judge panel of the court will hear oral argument in a case targeting the Energy Department’s (DOE) GHG analysis for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Alaska. Power Plant Rule Petitioners’ reply briefs are due Oct. 25 in the litigation targeting EPA’s power plant GHG rule, known as West Virginia, et al....

EPA Rebrands Corrective Action Program As ‘Hazardous Waste Cleanup’

EPA is renaming its waste office’s former Corrective Action Program, which is responsible for remediation under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), to the “Hazardous Waste Cleanup Program” -- a move that officials described as part of an effort to better explain the program’s goals in “plain English.” Cliff Villa, deputy assistant administrator at EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM), announced the change during his Oct. 17 remarks at the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste...

EPA set to publish LCRI on Oct. 30, starting clock for suits

EPA will formally publish its long-awaited Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) in the Federal Register on Oct. 30, starting both the years-long process of implementing the rule before it becomes enforceable in 2027, and a 45-day window ending on Dec. 14 for stakeholders to file legal challenges. The final rule, which EPA unveiled earlier this month, was posted in a “special filing” notice on the Register ’s website Oct. 18. When the LCRI is actually published, it will...

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