Environmentalists Sue EPA To Compel Release Of Delaware River WQS

An environmental group is suing EPA for failing to issue final water quality standards (WQS) to protect aquatic life in the Delaware River, charging that the agency is violating a nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to finalize such rules within 90 days of proposal. Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN) filed an Oct. 2 complaint to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania arguing that EPA failed to finalize its December 2023 proposed standards for dissolved...

Environmentalists Say EPA Must Add Fenceline Protections To 1-BP Rule

Environmental groups are arguing that TSCA requires EPA to incorporate protections for “fenceline communities” near chemical sites into its proposed risk management rule for the solvent 1-bromopropane (1-BP), amid broader claims that both the policy and the risk evaluation it is based on are unlawfully weak. Four environmental groups signed joint comments on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) 1-BP proposal, renewing long-standing arguments that EPA is improperly focusing its TSCA rules on worker safety while sidelining dangers that fenceline...

4th Circuit Asks If States ‘Concede’ PFAS Claims On Mixed Contamination

A federal appeals court is asking Maryland and South Carolina whether they will seek recovery for mixed PFAS contamination, from both aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) sources and non-AFFF sources, in order to determine whether the states will preclude such claims from their pending actions against 3M, just as Illinois did in its successful bid to keep its case against the company in state court. “Do you, like Illinois did in Illinois ex rel. Raoul v. 3M Co. , ... concede...

EPA Says LCRI Marks ‘Fundamental Shift’ To Preventive Approach On Lead

EPA is touting its final lead and copper rule improvements (LCRI) as marking a “fundamental shift” toward a more preventive approach to addressing lead in drinking water given the requirement for systems to replace all lead service lines (LSL) within 10 years, new limits on certain municipalities’ ability to win compliance extensions and other tough new mandates. “This final rule provides a fundamental shift to a more preventive approach to lead in drinking water. This is based on EPA’s experience...

States, Utilities Urge New Federal Funding To Ease LCRI’s Cost Burden

Water utility groups and state regulators are warning that EPA’s newly finalized Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) will require as much as $90 billion in new federal funding if local systems are to fulfill its mandate to replace nearly all lead service lines (LSLs) within 10 years -- far above the agency’s own cost estimates. Replacing nearly all LSLs in a decade is an “enormous undertaking,” Alan Roberson, executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, told...

DOD Outlines First-Time Budget Plan For AFFF Disposal In FY25 Justification

The Defense Department (DOD) in a first-time report is offering its justification for requesting more than $850 million for fiscal year 2025 to fund efforts to address PFAS, with the bulk of the funds aimed at paying for the removal, disposal and replacement of PFAS-containing firefighting foam used at thousands of facilities and in mobile assets. “The Department is taking significant actions DoD-wide to address PFAS,” DOD’s Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment says...

Amid Calls For IRA Repeal, Paper Finds Economic Benefits Of EV Tax Credits

A draft analysis from several economists is providing ammunition for defenders of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) electric vehicle (EV) tax credits, estimating that the credits last year yielded almost double the U.S. economic benefits relative to costs and that repealing them, as some GOP critics urge, could slow the domestic EV market. “There is a lot of negative rhetoric right now out in the public sphere” doubting the EV incentives, Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) clean vehicles director Kathy...

GOP States Renew Attacks On EPA Rule Detailing Air Act State Plan Methods

GOP-led states are rebutting EPA’s claims in their litigation challenging the agency’s rule to implement section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, arguing that the agency is wrongly claiming broad authority to direct how states write plans to comply with stationary source greenhouse gas and other air standards. “EPA supposes that Section 111(d) gives EPA full, almost unfettered license to restrict state discretion when the statute says EPA ‘shall permit’ States to consider source-specific factors in setting standards of performance...

Automakers Take Aim At Asbestos Risk Evaluation In TSCA Rule Challenge

Vehicle manufacturers say EPA’s Trump-era evaluation of industrial and commercial uses of chrysotile asbestos overestimated exposures, cherry-picked data and used flawed science to find that that nearly all such applications pose “unreasonable risk” to workers, backing chemical-sector groups’ calls to scrap both the rule based on the review and the analysis itself. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI) laid out those attacks in an amicus brief that the trade group filed Oct. 7 with the U.S. Court of Appeals...

Supreme Court Begins New Term With Suite Of Environmental Cases

Supreme Court justices are preparing for a new term that already includes two environmental cases -- over water pollution permits, and the scope of environmental reviews for a range of projects -- even as the court faces calls to hear additional cases about the venue for certain Clean Air Act litigation, California’s zero emission vehicle (ZEV) standards, and states and cities’ climate nuisance suits targeting the oil sector. This flurry of activity also comes as the high court is weighing...

OMB Mulls Methane Reconsideration Rule As Industry Urges Faster Pace

Editor's Note: This story replaces an earlier story that incorrectly stated which rule is now under review at the Office of Management & Budget. The White House has begun reviewing EPA’s draft proposed rule that would reconsider what the oil and gas sector says are two crucial provisions in the agency’s methane emissions standards for the sector, even as the industry is pressing officials to take quicker action on the measure to avoid compliance challenges. The White...

Clean Air Report - 10/10/2024

Tue, 2024-10-08 13:46

Petitioners Say SDWA PFAS Rule Errs In Cost Analysis, Truncated Process

Drinking water utilities and the chemical sector have filed their opening briefs in their suits challenging EPA’s landmark PFAS drinking water rule, charging that the agency violated legal mandates when it evaluated the rule’s costs and benefits, bypassed procedural requirements for standard-setting, made novel use of a formula to regulate mixtures, and failed to use up-to-date occurrence data. “The themes of EPA’s rulemaking are apparent -- hastiness, novelty, and inadequate data,” say American Water Works Association (AWWA) and Association of...

OMB Mulls Methane Reconsideration Rule As Industry Urges Faster Pace

The White House has begun reviewing EPA’s draft proposed rule that would reconsider what the oil and gas sector says are two crucial provisions in the agency’s methane emissions standards for the sector, even as the industry is pressing officials to take quicker action on the measure to avoid compliance challenges. The White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) began review of EPA’s draft proposal Oct. 7, according to its website. The rule is an outgrowth of EPA’s May...

EPA Suggests Denka May Need To Go Beyond New Rule To Cut Emissions

EPA is suggesting that Denka Performance Elastomer (DPE) may need to take additional steps beyond complying with a new air toxics rule limiting chloroprene emissions at the company’s manufacturing plant -- the nation’s only source of the pollutant -- in order to meet a separate enforcement action. In a Sept. 30 filing , EPA says it is seeking a court order in the Clean Air Act “imminent and substantial endangerment” enforcement case it is seeking to reopen requiring the facility...

Petitioners Say SDWA PFAS Rule Errs In Cost Analysis, Truncated Process

Drinking water utilities and the chemical sector have filed their opening briefs in their suits challenging EPA’s landmark PFAS drinking water rule, charging that the agency violated legal mandates when it evaluated the rule’s costs and benefits, bypassed procedural requirements for standard-setting, made novel use of a formula to regulate mixtures, and failed to use up-to-date occurrence data. “The themes of EPA’s rulemaking are apparent -- hastiness, novelty, and inadequate data,” say American Water Works Association (AWWA) and Association of...

D.C. Circuit denies industry intervention in SOCMI suit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is denying industry’s request to intervene on EPA’s behalf to defend its Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturing Industry (SOCMI) and Group I and II Polymers and Resins air toxics rule from environmentalists’ claims that it is too weak. The court in an Oct. 4 order in consolidated litigation known as Denka Performance Elastomer LLC (DPE) v. EPA denied a petition from several chemical sector groups to intervene in the...

Climate Extra - 10/08/2024

Tue, 2024-10-08 13:21

Final Rule

Fact Sheet


SAB Poised To Weigh Draft TSCA Paper On Chemical ‘Co-Exposures’

EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) is preparing to take up a draft approach for how the TSCA program could consider mixtures of chemicals in its evaluations of existing chemicals -- offering a window into how the agency plans to address longstanding concerns from environmentalists and some academics that it is improperly ignoring such exposures. The chartered Science Advisory Board (SAB) will conduct a “consultation” on the toxics office’s “ Draft Proposed Approach for Consideration of Chemical Co-exposure in [Toxic Substances...

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