Supreme Court Rejects Calls To Stay EPA’s Power Plant GHG Standards

The Supreme Court is rejecting calls from Republican-led states and power companies to stay implementation of EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards as litigation over the measure proceeds in an appellate court, dealing a blow to critics of the regulation. The court in an Oct. 16 order notes that several applications to stay the measure are “denied,” though it flags a dissent from one justice as well as concerns about the legality of EPA’s rule from two others. Specifically, Justice...

Supreme Court Rejects Calls To Stay EPA’s Power Plant GHG Standards

The Supreme Court is rejecting calls from Republican-led states and power companies to stay implementation of EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards as litigation over the measure proceeds in an appellate court, dealing a blow to critics of the regulation. The court in an Oct. 16 order notes that several applications to stay the measure are “denied,” though it flags a dissent from one justice as well as concerns about the legality of EPA’s rule from two others. Specifically, Justice...

Litigants Lay Out Competing TSCA Readings In Landmark Rule Challenges

Stakeholders have filed their first arguments for tightening, easing or scrapping entirely the Biden administration’s first three TSCA rules governing existing chemicals, setting the stage for precedent-setting decisions on how much power and discretion the reformed toxics law gives EPA -- and potentially leading to a circuit split that only the Supreme Court could resolve. Industry, environmentalists, unions and public-health groups have submitted opening briefs in recent weeks on some or all of three closely watched Toxic Substances Control Act...

F3 Shows Less Chronic But More Acute Toxicity Than AFFF, Study Finds

Early tests on the impact of fluorine-free foams (F3) on aquatic organisms show that their acute toxicity is greater than PFAS-containing aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), but that chronic toxicity is generally similar to or less than AFFF, critical information as the Defense Department (DOD) faces a looming deadline to transition from AFFF. The acute toxicities of the six F3s tested were slightly more toxic than AFFF but still generally safe, while the chronic toxicities of the F3s varied by species...

Tow Truck Companies Mount Final Bid To Ease CARB Clean Truck Rule

Tow truck companies are mounting a final bid to persuade California air officials to significantly ease mandates in the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule, expanding assertions that a dearth of new conventional combustion trucks will leave them without sufficient vehicles to continue operations and could cripple essential motorist services. “State regulators have created an insurmountable roadblock for towing and recovery truck drivers by mandating electric engine technology that can’t yet support custom, high-performance trucks,” asserts Brandon Neal, owner of Truck...

Washington State, Environmentalists Warn California Over 6PPD Alternatives

Washington state regulators and environmentalists are warning the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to carefully review tire manufacturers’ potential replacement chemicals for the anti-cracking compound 6PPD, arguing that some of the alternatives could be equally toxic to human and aquatic health. “Both 6PPD and the related compound 7PPD are known to be reproductive toxicants, yet 7PPD is included as a potential alternative in preliminary [alternatives analysis (AA)] reports submitted to DTSC,” states Oct. 9 comments to DTSC from...

Justices’ Recent Stay Denials Unlikely To Close Expected Flood Of Petitions

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions denying critics’ requests to stay EPA’s methane and mercury emissions rules are unlikely to close what is expected to be a flood of emergency petitions to stay other agency rules that appellate courts deny, industry observers say, after the court stayed the agency’s Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate ozone rule in June. One court observer says the Supreme Court in granting the GNP stay in Ohio v. EPA -- preceded only by its 2016...

Democratic AGs, Environmentalists Defend EPA Cost Bar In NAAQS Rules

Democratic attorneys general (AGs) and environmentalists are rushing to defend EPA’s longstanding view that consideration of costs in setting national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) is barred under the Clean Air Act and Supreme Court precedent, in litigation over tougher particulate matter (PM) limits that revives this fundamental question. In an Oct. 15 final brief in Commonwealth of Kentucky, et al., v. EPA et al. , Democratic AGs from 16 states, New York City, the District of Columbia and Harris...

Washington State, Environmentalists Warn California Over 6PPD Alternatives

Washington state regulators and environmentalists are warning the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to carefully review tire manufacturers’ potential replacement chemicals for the anti-cracking compound 6PPD, arguing that some of the alternatives could be equally toxic to human and aquatic health. “Both 6PPD and the related compound 7PPD are known to be reproductive toxicants, yet 7PPD is included as a potential alternative in preliminary [alternatives analysis (AA)] reports submitted to DTSC,” states Oct. 9 comments to DTSC from...

Water Systems Ready LSL Inventories Seen As Key To Replacement Funding

Water utilities are preparing for an Oct. 16 deadline to complete their first round of lead service line (LSL) inventories -- a process sources say took on new significance with EPA’s release of the final Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) as the inventories will guide allocation of funds to replace those lines as the new rule requires. Inventories are “going to be very important for accessing funding opportunities,” Greg Kail, director of communications for the American Water Works Association...

EPA Downplays Effect From Plan To Approve Phosphogypsum Road Pilot

EPA is downplaying environmentalists’ concerns that its proposed approval of a small-scale pilot project that would permit use of radioactive phosphogypsum in a Florida roadway could set a broader precedent, saying the agency is following statutory requirements to assess uses of the phosphate byproduct. “The approval of an individual project for other use of phosphogypsum does not imply approval of any other or future request. EPA’s full review process, including risk assessment, must take place for each request for other...

Split 6th Circuit panel blocks pipeline’s CWA 401 certification

A split appellate panel is staying the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s (TDEC) order granting a Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 water quality certification for construction of a natural gas pipeline in the state as well as the permit for construction, despite a novel dissent warning that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction. In an Oct. 11 order , Judges Karen Nelson Moore and Eric Clay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit stayed TDEC’s CWA...

Court Weighs TSCA ‘Serious Risk’ Mandate In PFAS Contamination Suit

Environmentalists are asking a federal district court to hold that TSCA requires EPA to quickly regulate PFAS contamination in fluorinated plastics independent from its grant of a rulemaking petition on the subject, in a novel test of the law’s mandate for the agency to address chemicals that threaten “serious or widespread harm” on an expedited schedule. Allowing EPA to avoid litigation under the widespread-harm provisions in section 4(f) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) simply because it is in...

Industry Urges Canada To Exclude Fluorinated Gases From PFAS Plan

American chemical companies are urging Canada’s regulators to exclude fluorinated gases from a revised draft proposal to regulate PFAS as a class, arguing the substances do not meet local requirements for being declared toxic and are already strictly regulated under an international agreement on ozone-depleting substances (ODS). In comments submitted last month, the companies and their representatives urged the Canadian environment and health ministries to exclude fluorinated gases from their pending regulatory proposal. They cite the officials’ recent decision excluding...

Scientists Slam Permit Streamlining Bill, Prompting Pushback From Backers

Over 100 scientists are pressing Congress to oppose permit streamlining legislation awaiting possible Senate floor action, claiming the bill’s fossil fuel-friendly provisions would likely negate any greenhouse gas-reduction benefits from its provisions seeking to boost renewables and power transmission lines construction. “As U.S. scientists, we write to express our substantial concerns regarding the Energy Permitting Reform Act (‘EPRA’) of 2024,” says an Oct. 12 letter from the scientists to lawmakers, citing concerns that the bill advanced in July on a...

Facing Delay Of PBT Deadline Rule, EPA Pushes DecaBDE Ban To January

EPA is postponing through Jan. 6 enforcement of a Trump-era mandate for nuclear facilities to phase out insulated wire and other components made with the flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE), conceding that a rule extending the Oct. 31 deadline for decaBDE and another “persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic” (PBT) flame retardants will not take effect this year. But the agency appears to be taking no such action for the other target of that rule, phenol, isopropylated phosphate, or PIP (3:1) --...

Facing Delay Of PBT Deadline Rule, EPA Pushes DecaBDE Ban To January

EPA is postponing through Jan. 6 enforcement of a Trump-era mandate for nuclear facilities to phase out insulated wire and other components made with the flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE), conceding that a rule extending the Oct. 31 deadline for decaBDE and another “persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic” (PBT) flame retardants will not take effect this year. But the agency appears to be taking no such action for the other target of that rule, phenol, isopropylated phosphate, or PIP (3:1) --...

Amid Compliance Queries, EPA Touts LCRI As Major Lead Prevention Step

EPA’s high-profile rule targeting lead-based drinking water pipes will force utilities to replace nearly all lead service lines (LSLs) over the next decade and take various other steps to limit exposures -- a measure that agency officials are hailing as a major shift toward preventing contamination. However, state and local officials are pressing for more federal funding to ease compliance cost burdens, while some industry and environmental groups are at odds over whether certain plastic pipes should be considered a...

States Refuse To Reject Pursuing Claims Over Mixed PFAS Contamination

Maryland and South Carolina are refusing to preclude seeking recovery for PFAS contamination in areas where contamination from aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) and non-AFFF sources may have commingled, marking a difference with the concession Illinois made in a similar suit that served as the basis to successfully remand its case to state court. “The States do not so concede,” Maryland and South Carolina say in an Oct. 11 letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 4th Circuit. “Nonetheless,...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Request 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.