Panel Backs Stricter EPA Oil Spill Response, Rejects Call For New Powers

President Obama's oil spill panel is urging EPA strengthen its spill response protocols dealing with clean-up activities, human health protections and spill response plans but the panel stopped short of backing a larger role for the agency in approving drilling operations or environmental reviews as some had suggested during the recent Gulf spill. Instead, those responsibilities would remain primarily with the Department of the Interior (DOI), while the commission recommends a larger role for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

U.S. Chamber Suggests Bifurcated Approach For EPA Rule Reviews

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's top lobbyist is suggesting that EPA implement a two-tiered rulemaking process to subject "economically significant" rules, which have costs exceeding $100 million, to more intensive scientific and economic analysis than minor rules, as part of the group's efforts to reform the rulemaking process as a counter to the "regulatory tsunami" it says has been unleashed by the Obama administration. R. Bruce Josten, the Chamber's executive vice president for government affairs, says specific reforms would differ...

Rockefeller Wants Vote To Stall EPA GHG Rules Before Spending Law Ends

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) says he will push for the Senate to vote on his proposal to delay by two years EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations before the continuing resolution (CR) funding the government expires March 4, fearing that its expiration will provide House Republicans with an opportunity to undercut the agency's authority more drastically than he would like to see. At the same time some moderate Senate Democrats are balking at Rockefeller's proposal to block GHG stationary source regulations...

Correction

An article in the Jan. 7 issue of Inside EPA , "EAB Ruling Could Set Precedent For Weighing New NAAQS In Air Permits," incorrectly identified the effective date of EPA's national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for nitrogen dioxide. The correct date is April 12.

Chesapeake Bay Lawsuit Marks New Test For EPA's TMDL Power

The American Farm Bureau Federation's (AFBF) legal challenge of EPA's novel, multistate pollution load limit for the Chesapeake Bay watershed could provide a new test of the agency's authority to set pollution limits among different sources and to dictate state actions in cleaning up waterbodies. In its Jan. 10 lawsuit, AFBF, et al. v. EPA , the farm industry group charges the recently finalized Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL) for nutrients and sediment is "fatally flawed" because the allocation...

EPA Eyes New Method For Estimating Health Benefits Of Regulations

EPA is proposing a new method for measuring the public health benefits of its regulations, including reduced mortality levels, a major step that could help the agency defend its regulatory decisions and address long-standing criticisms about its existing method by dropping a measurement that places a statistical value on a human life. EPA late last month released a draft paper, "Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions for Environmental Policy," prior to a Jan. 20-21 meeting of EPA Science Advisory Board's (SAB) augmented...

GE Seeks High Court Review Of Cleanup Orders Despite Hudson Agreement

The General Electric Company (GE) is asking the Supreme Court to hear its long-running constitutional challenge to EPA's ability to issue unilateral cleanup orders under the Superfund law, despite having already agreed to comply with the agency's cleanup plan for a major site that environmentalists feared the suit could impact. GE petitioned the high court Dec. 29 to hear the case General Electric Co. v. Lisa Jackson , in which the company has so-far unsuccessfully argued that EPA's ability to...

Industry Mulls GOP Scrutiny For EPA Toxics Policies But Fears Budget Cuts

The chemical industry is considering whether to ask GOP lawmakers to scrutinize a number of EPA programs affecting the sector, such as new reporting requirements, but may also urge Congress not to cut the agency's budget, fearing that decreased funding would further delay needed chemical reviews, industry sources say. Observers are doubtful that Congress will take up broad reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) any time soon, spurring industry to consider taking a narrower set of issues to...

Jackson Reaches Out To Key GOP Lawmaker On Appropriations Riders

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is wasting no time reaching out to newly empowered House Republicans, meeting with a key GOP lawmaker to discuss a series of appropriations riders addressing agency policies on greenhouse gas (GHG) controls, ozone standards, clean water requirements and pesticide labels. In a meeting sought by the administrator, Jackson met Jan. 7 with Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH), a member of the Appropriations Committee who in the last Congress offered several failed amendments aimed at EPA rules that...

Rebuffing Industry, EPA Adopts New Ratios For Estimating Dioxins' Risks

Backed by scientific experts, EPA has adopted new ratios, known as toxicity equivalence factors (TEFs), for quantifying the risks and setting cleanup levels for scores of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, rebuffing long-standing industry criticisms that the use of TEFs is unscientific and can overstate risk. EPA Jan. 6 unveiled a final document, "Recommended Toxicity Equivalence Factors (TEFs) for Human Health Risk Assessments of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin and Dioxin-Like Compounds [TCDD]," that contains the new values. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. The...

Activists Push To Expand Slate Of Senate Democrats Defending EPA Rules

Environmentalists are looking to expand the roster of Senate Democrats willing to defend EPA rules against House Republicans' attempts to block agency regulations, hoping to expand the list of EPA supporters beyond liberal coastal state senators to include Democrats seen as moderate on the environment. Broadening the slate of Democratic senators who will defend rules could help give some shape to Senate Democrats' as-yet-undefined strategy for countering an oncoming GOP onslaught against EPA regulations, sources say. Winning the support of...

Industry Bid For Strict Chromium 6 Review Could Stymie EPA Water Rule

The chemical industry is urging EPA to seek a more rigorous peer review than the agency currently intends for its recently released draft risk estimate of the ubiquitous metal hexavalent chromium (Cr6), a move that if granted may stall an assessment that will play a critical role in the agency's plan to set a strict, first-time drinking water limit for Cr6. In recently released written comments on the draft assessment, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a chemical industry trade association,...

State Bid For Lower Mercury Permit Trigger May Expand MACT Rules' Reach

State environmental officials are urging EPA to dramatically lower the threshold for imposing strict maximum achievable control technology (MACT) requirements to cut mercury emissions, a change that could expand mercury MACT controls to a broader range of industry sectors and prompt calls to lower thresholds for other toxics such as dioxin. A lower threshold could require EPA to regulate smaller sources of mercury that currently do not exceed the threshold of being a Clean Air Act "major" mercury source --...

EPA's 3-Year GHG Waiver For Biomass Prompts Fears Of Permit Delays

EPA has decided to give biomass-powered facilities a three-year exemption from greenhouse gas (GHG) permit requirements while the agency writes a formal policy for how biomass GHGs should be counted in permits -- a move that is raising fears that some permits could be delayed until the policy is completed. The decision reverses a controversial position EPA took last year to require permits for biomass emissions when the GHG control requirements kicked in on Jan. 2 of this year. The...

No GHG Aftershock

EPA’s top air official said Jan. 12 that the agency’s air permitting program for greenhouse gases (GHGs), which began Jan. 2, has not caused the chaos that some opponents had charged it would. “Most people didn’t see much appreciable difference in the world” following the Jan. 2 trigger date, said Gina McCarthy, head of the agency’s Office of Air & Radiation, at a meeting of EPA’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC) in Arlington, VA. Rather, the start of the...

http://InsideEpa.com/sites/insideepa.com/documents/jan2011/epa2011_0079.pdf


EPA Motion To Consolidate Cases In District Court's Tallahassee Division

Industry, Florida Motion To Consolidate Cases In District Court's Pensacola Division


http://InsideEpa.com/sites/insideepa.com/documents/jan2011/epa2011_0077.pdf


Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates comments

Nano Business Alliance comments


EPA's 3-Year GHG Waiver For Biomass Prompts Fears Of Permit Delays

EPA has decided to give biomass-powered facilities a three-year exemption from greenhouse gas (GHG) permit requirements while the agency writes formal policy for how biomass GHGs should be counted in permits -- a move that is raising fears that some permits could be delayed until the policy is completed. The decision reverses a controversial EPA position taken last year to require permits for biomass emissions when the GHG control requirements kicked in on Jan. 2 of this year. The reversal...

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