Judges Weigh ‘Ripeness’ Of Texas’ Case Over EPA Ozone Sanctions Finding

A panel of 5th Circuit judges is weighing whether to grant Texas’ bid to scrap an EPA finding that the state failed to submit a required plan to attain federal ozone limits in three cities, though they are grappling with whether the suit is ripe as the state may still be able to avoid any sanctions that are slated to kick in next year. During Oct. 7 oral argument in State of Texas v. EPA , attorneys for the state...

EPA Weighs Appeal Options Following Loss In TSCA Fluoridation Suit

EPA and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are considering options for appealing a federal district judge’s landmark ruling that drinking water fluoridation poses “unreasonable risk” under TSCA -- deliberations that they say in a new filing are the focus of “extensive” resources at both agencies due to the complex nature of the suit. “The government is reviewing the record of these proceedings and determining whether to seek appellate review. These efforts require an extensive commitment of resources by the United...

CEQ Seeks WHEJAC Advice On ‘Place-Based’ Environmental Injustice

The White House is asking its environmental justice advisors to recommend successful models “for place-based and community-focused initiatives (including community-driven and collaborative efforts) to address cumulative impacts from environmental injustice that can inform federal multiagency collaboration.” The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) formally made the request during an Oct. 9 meeting in Huntsville, AL, of the Biden administration’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC). Chief federal environmental justice officer Jalonne White-Newsome of CEQ said the advice is needed to...

DOD PFAS Notifications To Agricultural Sites Decrease Slightly In FY24

The Defense Department (DOD) in fiscal year 2024 notified 355 agricultural operations for the first time of potential PFAS contamination stemming from releases at nearby DOD facilities, a number which is only slightly less than the notifications DOD made in the previous year. DOD also sent updated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) information, “defined as new data that exceed initial notification results for covered PFAS,” to 237 previously notified agricultural operations, according to the Pentagon’s most recent annual report ,...

Former EPA Staff Tout ‘Probabilistic’ Risk Methods, Echoing TSCA Comments

Former EPA staff are urging the agency to apply newer “probabilistic” methods for developing quantitative risk estimates for non-cancer risks in its regulatory analyses, echoing arguments recently raised by scientists and others in comments on the TSCA program’s latest risk-management proposal. Dan Axelrad, an independent consultant retired from EPA’s policy office, said during an Oct. 8 panel discussion that “incorporation of the [probabilistic] methods into EPA hazard and dose-response analyses is really unfortunately lagging behind the development of the approaches...

NASEM Panel Aims To Help USDA Respond To PFAS On Agricultural Land

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) are preparing to launch a study to help the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) understand whether Farm Bill conservation practices affect PFAS contamination on agricultural land, part of a growing national focus on PFAS issues in agriculture. “The purpose of this study is to review what is known about the effects of conservation practices on [per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)] contamination of agricultural land,” NASEM say in a call for committee...

EPA Orders Toxicity Tests On PFAS Used In Range Of Manufacturing Sectors

EPA is adding a fifth PFAS to its testing program that requires industry to conduct new studies of “representative” chemicals in the class, targeting a substance known as 6:2 fluorotelomer acrylate (6:2 FTAc) that the agency says plays a role in manufacturing a range of materials such as plastics, textiles and resins. The agency announced its test order for 6:2 FTAc on Oct. 9, starting a one-year deadline for industry groups to either pay for an array of toxicity studies...

San Francisco Officials At Odds Over CWA Suit Ahead Of High Court Hearing

San Francisco’s leaders are at odds with city supervisors, residents and environmental groups over their decision to challenge EPA’s authority to include “narrative” pollution limits in Clean Water Act (CWA) permits, days before the Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments in the suit. The city’s board of supervisors Oct. 8 approved a non-binding resolution urging the city attorney’s office to drop the case, but the city attorney’s office is unlikely to do so, saying that the planned Oct...

Amid Hill Momentum, DOE Pilot To Measure Industrial Product GHG Intensity

The Biden administration is launching a pilot program to measure the greenhouse gas intensity of certain industrial products, a move that one environmental group says could reflect growing Capitol Hill momentum to enact legislation on similar data collection efforts that could in turn form the basis of a carbon border fee program. Broad support for that legislation, known as the PROVE IT Act, has “strong signal” to the White House and the Energy Department (DOE) that both Republicans and Democrats...

MDL Judge Sets Trial Date For First Group Of PFAS Personal Injury Cases

The federal district court judge overseeing multidistrict litigation (MDL) over PFAS contamination from firefighting foam has set Oct. 6, 2025, as the initial date for a bellwether trial on cases tied to kidney and testicular cancer, the first of several potential rounds of personal injury bellwethers. In an Oct. 8 case management order , Judge Richard Gergel of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina outlines additional interim dates for completing discovery and deciding which of the...

Equipment Groups’ Suit Joins Effort To Block CARB ZEV Truck Fleet Rule

Truck equipment industry groups are suing to block the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) zero-emission truck regulation, adding to three other separate federal lawsuits by industry groups that are also targeting the measure. The Specialty Equipment Market Association & Performance Racing, Inc. (SEMA) and the National Truck Equipment Association (NTEA) “recognize that the ACF Regulations are currently being challenged in other pending lawsuits. SEMA and NTEA felt it important to bring this suit on behalf of...

EPA Faces Renewed Pressure To Overhaul TSCA Evaluations

Industry groups, environmentalists and EPA’s own science advisors are raising separate attacks on the TSCA program’s approach to chemical risk evaluations under both the Trump and Biden administrations, laying out calls for it to either strengthen or ease the reviews in both litigation over risk-management rules and comments on a host of pending actions. In recent weeks, stakeholders on all sides have raised new attacks on EPA’s Trump-era Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) evaluation of asbestos as part of their...

Quote-Unquote: EPA adds expansive PFAS reporting to TRI

What they’re saying. EPA proposes major expansion of PFAS reporting under Toxic Release Inventory : “Based on EPA’s review of the publicly available toxicity data, EPA has concluded that the PFAS proposed for addition to the . . . toxic chemical list can reasonably be anticipated to cause adverse chronic human health effects at moderately low to low exposure doses and/or environmental effects at low concentrations. EPA concludes the data show that these PFAS have moderately high to high human...

D.C. Circuit Judges Appear Skeptical Of Suits Over EPA’s HFC Allocations

A panel of D.C. Circuit judges appears skeptical of a pair of challenges to EPA’s most recent rule outlining how officials will allocate allowances under its hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown program, including a sweeping claim that the 2020 HFC control statute is unconstitutional under the so-called nondelegation doctrine. Under that argument -- advanced by the refrigerant company Choice Refrigerants -- the law known as the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act does not outline how EPA must allocate allowances to various...

D.C. Circuit Judges Appear Skeptical Of Suits Over EPA’s HFC Allocations

A panel of D.C. Circuit judges appears skeptical of a pair of challenges to EPA’s most recent rule outlining how officials will allocate allowances under its hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown program, including a sweeping claim that the 2020 HFC control statute is unconstitutional under the so-called nondelegation doctrine. Under that argument -- advanced by the refrigerant company Choice Refrigerants -- the law known as the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act does not outline how EPA must allocate allowances to various...

EPA Test Order May Mark Path Under Novel D.C. Circuit TSCA Precedent

EPA is ordering new industry-funded toxicity tests for a PFAS known as 6:2 FTAc, marking not only the latest step in the Biden administration’s TSCA testing strategy targeting the chemical class but also an early signal of how it could seek to navigate a new D.C. Circuit precedent on the standard it must meet to justify using the toxics law’s test-order powers. The 6:2 FTAc test order , which EPA signed Oct. 8 and released publicly Oct. 9, is the...

Inside EPA - 10/11/2024

Wed, 2024-10-09 15:35

EPA ‘Compelled’ To Cut Affirmative Defense From Air Permits, Agency Says

EPA is defending its rule removing “affirmative defenses” for malfunction emissions from air permits as “reasonable” and “compelled” by the Clean Air Act and legal precedent, arguing in a new legal filing that its action comports with an appellate court’s bifurcated view of such defenses, amid industry accusations that the rule is unlawful. In an Oct. 7 brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in SSM Litigation Group v. EPA , the agency...

EPA Test Order May Mark Path Under Novel D.C. Circuit TSCA Precedent

EPA is ordering new industry-funded toxicity tests for a PFAS known as 6:2 FTAc, marking not only the latest step in the Biden administration’s TSCA testing strategy targeting the chemical class but also an early signal of how it could seek to navigate a new D.C. Circuit precedent on the standard it must meet to justify using the toxics law’s test-order powers. The 6:2 FTAc test order , which EPA signed Oct. 8 and released publicly Oct. 9, is the...

EPA Reopens Public Comment Period On POTW Influent PFAS Data Collection

EPA is reopening the public comment period on its plan to collect information from hundreds of publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) to inform the agency’s development of technology-based PFAS controls on industrial discharges, following calls from wastewater utilities, environmentalists and some states for EPA to leverage existing data. In a Federal Register notice scheduled to be published Oct. 10, EPA says it is providing an additional 30 days for public comment on the proposed information collection request (ICR). The...

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