EPA, Activists Clash Over Discretion To Ease Cancer Risk Threshold

EPA and environmentalists are at odds over whether the Clean Air Act (CAA) grants EPA discretion to raise the cancer risk threshold it uses to determine whether air toxics sources are required to further reduce emissions under the residual risk portion of the agency's air toxics program, after EPA late last month proposed a controversial rule for petroleum refineries that raises acceptable cancer risks to 100-in-1-million rather than the traditional 1-in-1-million threshold. The proposal is significant because it is the...