EPA Agrees To Deadline For Ruling On Western Pollution Transport Plans

EPA is agreeing to a proposed consent decree with environmentalists that would require the agency to no later than mid-2011 approve state implementation plans (SIPs) to reduce interstate ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the West or impose a federal implementation plan (FIP) to cut emissions if EPA deems the plans inadequate. The Nov. 10 proposed settlement between EPA and WildEarth Guardians -- which sued EPA to force action on the plans -- lays out a slew of deadlines...

EPA Weighing New Community Engagement Plan For All Waste Programs

EPA's waste office is weighing how to improve community engagement at Superfund sites and create new ways of involving communities at other types of waste sites without raising public expectations that the agency will always cede to community requests for cleanup changes. The push for greater community engagement is one of EPA waste chief Mathy Stanislaus' key initiatives, drawing on his experience as an environmental justice advocate in New York City and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's emphasis on addressing environmental...

Ethylene Oxide Carcinogen Finding May Boost Strict EPA Risk Assessment

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in a recently updated study classifies the widely used chemical ethylene oxide (EtO) as carcinogenic to humans, a finding that may boost EPA in its effort to finalize next year a strict draft risk assessment of the substance that also identifies it as carcinogenic. "There is strong evidence that the carcinogenicity of ethylene oxide, a direct alkylating agent, operates by a genotoxic mechanism," IARC writes in its recently released...

Utilities Fear Increased Citizen Suits From EPA Due To Electronic Reporting

EPA's plan to require electronic reporting of discharge monitoring reports (DMRs) will likely please larger water utilities that would find the method easier, EPA officials say, but one industry attorney says the upcoming rule could open up utilities to additional citizen enforcement suits since the data will be more readily available to the public. EPA enforcement chief Cynthia Giles told industry officials Nov. 13 that the agency may soon begin a rulemaking to require all wastewater facilities to electronically submit...

Physicians' Report Finds Coal Not 'Medically Defensible' Energy Policy

Doctors' group Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is calling for strict environmental regulation of coal as a significant contributor to national and global ill health and is instead pushing for a "medically defensible energy policy" that uses renewable energy in place of the fossil fuel. "When our nation establishes a health-driven energy policy, one that replaces our dependence on coal with clean, safe alternatives, we will prevent the deterioration of global public health caused by global warming while reaping the...

Water Office Plans To Revisit, Revise Long-Term Climate Change Strategy

EPA's water office says it is evaluating the effectiveness of its short- and long-term goals for addressing shifting water resources due to climate change -- changes that industry says could cost nearly $1 trillion over the next 40 years -- and could revise its climate change strategy as a result. An agency spokeswoman told Inside EPA Nov. 3 that the agency's National Water Program Workgroup is evaluating the successes of the existing climate change strategy document, which was issued in...

Industry, GOP Challenge EPA Over Costs Data For Air Act Climate Agenda

Industry and Republican lawmakers are challenging EPA over the potential economic costs of its pending Clean Air Act rules to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with industry arguing that EPA has failed to adequately analyze such costs and the GOP arguing that the agency has an air act duty to calculate the rules' impact on jobs. Petrochemical industry officials are also questioning the legality one of the upcoming rules -- a proposal "tailoring" air act permitting requirements on first-time GHG...

Inside Cal/EPA - 11/27/2009

Fri, 2009-11-27 00:00

Inside EPA - 11/27/2009

Fri, 2009-11-27 00:00

Inside Cal/EPA - 11/27/2009

Activists Urge California Agencies To Clarify Low Carbon Fuel Rule GHG Credits California Regulators Weigh Terminating Major Utility\'s GHG-Offset Program California Unveils Draft Rules For Cap-And-Trade Program Ethanol Industry Requests California Air Officials To Reopen Low-Carbon Fuel Rule Lawmakers, California Air Board Clash Over Delays For Diesel Rules California Air Board Member Requests Board Set Aside Disputed Diesel Report, Truck Rule California Water Officials Unveil Revised Draft Once-Through Cooling Policy

Industry, GOP Challenge EPA Over Costs Data For Air Act Climate Agenda

Industry and Republican lawmakers are challenging EPA over the potential economic costs of its pending Clean Air Act rules to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with industry arguing that EPA has failed to adequately analyze such costs and the GOP arguing that the agency has an air act duty to calculate the rules' impact on jobs. Petrochemical industry officials are also questioning the legality one of the upcoming rules -- a proposal "tailoring" air act permitting requirements on first-time GHG...

States Press EPA To Harmonize Federal-Regional GHG Reporting Rules

Officials in Western states and Canadian provinces designing a regional greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program are urging EPA to clarify how it intends to ensure an upcoming federal GHG-reporting rule will not interfere with ongoing regional efforts. State officials say EPA is taking too long to make critical decisions on how to harmonize federal-state reporting rules, which may force industrial facilities to meet costly duplicative requirements. Specifically, state officials are pressing EPA to decide whether it will allow a voluntary,...

EPA Plans Quick Schedule For Expanding Scope Of GHG Report Rules

EPA is moving quickly to craft a new round of greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting rules in 2010, a move that could bring new sectors such as coal mining, oil and gas drilling and others into the reporting registry for the first time and broaden the types of emissions reported from sectors like ethanol production that currently face default requirements. Gina McCarthy, the head of EPA's air office, told sister publication Inside EPA recently that the agency plans to move "very...

Activists Claim EPA Violation Of Ethics Rules Over Climate Video Dispute

EPA is being accused of violating its own ethics rules by ordering two agency attorneys to remove and edit a video they posted on the Web that criticizes the greenhouse gas cap-and-trade proposals being considered by Congress. The video -- which makes an emotionally charged argument against cap-and-trade legislation by asserting the plan is so ill-conceived that it is comparable to the 1986 Challenger Shuttle disaster -- promises to be the next major flash-point over EPA's support for climate change...

EPA Advisors To Review White Paper On Climate's Pesticide Use Impacts

EPA's Science Advisory Panel (SAP) for pesticides will next year review an under-development agency white paper on examining and addressing the impact climate change has on pesticide use, a key agency pesticides official says, which appears to meet environmentalists' push for the agency to seek SAP's expert input on the document. Debbie Edwards, head of EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs, told a Nov. 12 Bird Conservation Alliance meeting in Washington, DC, that the agency will in 2010 seek review of...

California Attorney General Faults San Joaquin Air District GHG Policy

The attorney general's (AG) office is ripping San Joaquin Valley air district's proposed policy for addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new projects under the state's environmental review law, arguing that the district's GHG "thresholds" fail to hold up to legal scrutiny. The district is scheduled to adopt the policy next month, and by doing so may set the stage for environmental groups or the AG's office to challenge in court how GHG emissions from certain projects in the valley...

EPA Expected To Complete Climate-Risk Findings Before Global Talks

EPA may issue pending findings that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions endanger the public, a document that clears the way for agency regulation of the gases, in time for December climate change talks in Copenhagen as a way to bolster U.S. credibility on the international stage in the absence of a domestic climate change law, observers say. The expectations are a change from some earlier predictions that the findings would likely be released in the spring, reflecting dimming prospects for congressional...

Consensus Emerges For 'Political' Deal At Copenhagen But Specifics Vary

With less than a month before international climate talks in Copenhagen, participants and observers agree that a legally binding new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol will be impossible to deliver, with a consensus emerging on the need for negotiators reaching a "political" deal that may lay the groundwork for a treaty to be signed in 2010. However, opinions vary on what could constitute an acceptable or likely interim agreement, with some believing a document that includes firm, numerical commitments...

Bid To Restrict Key GHG With Ozone Treaty Delayed Beyond Copenhagen

Proponents of using the Montreal Protocol ozone treaty to limit the production of a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) -- hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) -- have lost their bid to vote on the plan before international climate talks in Copenhagen in December, prompting concerns that it could raise the bar for the climate talks even further. The parties to the Montreal Protocol treaty on reducing ozone-depleting pollutants met Nov. 4-8 in Egypt, where nations were slated to discuss a proposal by the United...

Draft Baucus Amendments Show Finance Chairman's Climate Bill Priorities

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the powerful Finance Committee and a key player in the climate debate, drafted 19 amendments to cap-and-trade legislation outlining his priorities for the bill, including lowering mitigation targets, curtailing EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs) under the Clean Air Act and other changes. The amendments were never considered by the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, of which Baucus also is a member, because Republicans boycotted the panel's markup of the climate bill...

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