Suppress from Daily News

Senate Clears Defense Bill Echoing House Plan For Faster PFAS Cleanups

The Senate has approved its fiscal year 2026 defense policy bill with language that echoes House provisions for expediting PFAS cleanups at military sites, but lawmakers face a conference debate on Senate language that lifts a ban on Defense Department (DOD) procurement of certain items containing PFAS and repeals a temporary incineration ban for the chemicals. The Senate Oct. 9 approved S. 2296, the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), in a 77-20 vote after the bill had been stalled...

Industry Urges DOJ To Challenge Local Gas Hookup Rules, Building Codes

Industry groups and free market think tanks are encouraging the Trump administration to embrace arguments that various federal laws preempt state and local ordinances that ban or limit the use of gas appliances, a move aimed to bolster the administration’s ongoing attacks on state climate policies. “By banning fossil fuel infrastructure, they are setting an appliance energy use standard of zero for all gas appliances -- a stricter standard than the federal appliance standard, which causes a violation of” the...

Suit Over EPA Waiver For CARB’s SORE Rule Proceeds After Stay Denied

The 9th Circuit is preparing to hear industry litigation challenging the Biden-EPA’s Clean Air Act preemption waiver allowing California to enforce its rules setting zero-emissions mandates for most new small off-road engines (SORE), after a panel denied a motion by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) to stay the agency’s action. The panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit late last month denied the industry request for a stay, citing circuit precedent in Nken v. Holder...

CEC Adopts First-Time Rules For EV Charger Reliability, Usage Reporting

After more than two years of development and repeated pushback from industry, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has adopted first-time rules requiring electric vehicle (EV) charging companies to provide regular reports about the number, usage rate and reliability of many of their public chargers. “We really worked hard . . . to understand the industry and to strike the right balance of a reg that can improve the reliability and yet not overly burden what is a nascent industry,” said...

DTSC Finalizes Regulatory Responses Required For Spray Foam Systems

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has finalized proposed “regulatory response” mandates for makers of certain spray polyurethane foam (SPF) systems under the state’s Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program, including a scaled back requirement for manufacturers to fund safer alternatives. In an Oct. 7 announcement and an Oct. 6 notice of final determination , DTSC details three required regulatory response actions that manufacturers of SPF systems with unreacted methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) must take to continue selling...

Appliance Makers Criticize Eased HFC Limits, Highlighting Industry Split

A key group representing appliance manufacturers is criticizing the Trump EPA’s proposal to ease various Biden-era end-use restrictions for climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons, arguing compliance deadline extensions for the grocery and other sectors would make it hard for manufacturers to plan their products and ultimately aid foreign industry. The EPA proposal “would disrupt multi-year planning and investment by U.S. manufacturers,” argues Samantha Slater, vice president of government affairs with the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) that represents companies that make equipment...

CARB Lists Companies Subject To GHG-Disclosure Laws, Seeks Feedback

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has released a “preliminary” list of thousands of large companies that it believes are subject to the state’s landmark laws requiring firms to report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate change-related financial risks, and it is seeking feedback from stakeholders about whether the list is accurate. CARB “encourages companies to complete the survey if they are”: listed but qualify for a potential exemption; listed but should not have been; listed, though a parent company...

EPA Adds PFHxS Salt To TRI Reporting List, Following IRIS Toxicity Value

EPA is adding another PFAS to the list of chemicals that regulated facilities must report to the agency under the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program, as part of an automatic update to the inventory required by law after the agency completes a toxicity value for the chemical or undertakes certain other regulatory activities. The agency’s Oct. 7 addition of sodium perfluorohexanesulfonate (PFHxS-Na) to the TRI means regulated entities must now report 206 PFAS though facilities will not begin tracking their...

Washington State Carbon Trading Program Survives High Court Challenge

Washington state’s relatively young greenhouse gas “cap-and-invest” program has survived another major threat to its continued implementation, after the Supreme Court declined to hear a power company’s appeal asserting that the program unconstitutionally burdens interstate commerce. The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal, issued in a brief Oct. 6 order , comes nearly a year after state voters in the November election rejected a ballot initiative that would have repealed the carbon trading program. The justices did not...

Peer Reviewers Urge Major Changes To TSCA Phthalate Drafts Despite Deadlines

EPA science advisors in a newly released peer review report are recommending multiple significant changes to improve the suite of draft TSCA phthalate analyses, including a novel cumulative analysis, while acknowledging that “many” of the committee’s recommendations will not be addressed because of EPA’s strict court-ordered deadlines. The Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals’ (SACC) Oct. 6 report praises EPA’s effort to consider cumulative risk but also questions the agency’s ability to assess the individual chemicals, which are used to make...

D.C. Circuit To Finish Briefing In CERCLA PFAS Rule Suit By December

The D.C. Circuit has approved a jointly requested schedule to complete briefing before the end of the year in industry’s challenge of EPA’s rule designating two legacy PFAS as Superfund “hazardous substances,” after lifting the stay after the agency decided to retain and defend the Biden-era regulation. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in an Oct. 2 order agreed to an amended briefing schedule that EPA, industry and environmentalists jointly proposed Sept. 30 in Chamber...

DOE Scuttles $7.5 Billion In Clean Energy Funds As Budget Fights Mount

The Department of Energy (DOE) is terminating $7.5 billion for 321 awards supporting 223 projects, largely in Democratic states, for clean energy and related projects -- in an Oct. 2 announcement that critics say is aimed at punishing Democrats for the federal government shutdown. The projects cover a wide range of sectors, including power, biofuel, hydrogen, solar, cement, carbon capture and storage, mining and transportation, though a key Trump official indicated the terminations are aimed at states that voted for...

Newsom Vetoes PFAS Mitigation Fund Bill, Citing Lack Of Funding, Need

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has vetoed a bill to create a PFAS mitigation fund allowing state water regulators to cover or reduce costs associated with treating for PFAS in drinking water, recycled water, stormwater, and wastewater, saying it would duplicate current CalEPA efforts, lacks funding, and would divert money from other areas. “While well-intentioned, this bill is unnecessary,” Newsom writes in an Oct. 1 veto message for SB 454 by Sen. Jerry McNerney (D-Stockton), which lawmakers approved unanimously last...

Boeing Rebuts L.A. Water Board Defense Of SSFL Cleanup Permit In Appeal

The Boeing Co. is rebutting arguments by the Los Angeles regional water board in defense of its strict testing, cleanup and monitoring requirements contained in a water permit for cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), arguing in part that the regulator’s monitoring requirements and effluent limits far exceed its authority. “The Board’s position reflects an unprecedented expansion of regulatory authority far beyond what state and federal law -- not to mention common sense -- allow,” states Boeing’s Sept...

Industry, Environmentalists Clash Over California Drilling-Setback Rules

Industry and environmental groups are clashing over California’s proposed rule requiring 3,200-foot setbacks between new or reworked oil and gas production operations and “sensitive receptors,” with industry saying the rules will hinder the state’s new push to increase oil production and environmentalists objecting to new compliance exemptions. “[I]t is imperative that the State act rapidly to mitigate for future refinery closures and stabilize crude oil pipelines that deliver domestic crude to the refineries. Implementation of the proposed First Implementation Regulations...

Gas Firms Say Court Ignores EPCA Precedent In Appeal Over L.A. Boiler Rule

Natural gas firms are urging the 9th Circuit to reverse a lower court ruling that upheld a zero-emission boiler rule in the Los Angeles region, arguing the district court ignored the appellate court’s 2024 ruling that Berkeley, CA’s ban on natural gas hookups to new homes and buildings was preempted by the Energy Policy & Conservation Act (EPCA). “This case presents essentially the same question of federal preemption this Court resolved last year” in California Restaurant Association (CRA) v. City...

EEI Warns EPA About Adverse Effects Of Reversing GHG Risk Finding

Investor-owned utilities are cautioning EPA about the potential fallout from removing the greenhouse gas endangerment finding and linked vehicle emissions standards -- arguing federal GHG standards play an important role in displacing federal common law suits and providing the regulatory certainty required to build new gas plants. The power sector is not regulated directly by EPA’s proposed rule, which seeks to rescind the agency’s threshold risk finding and repeal vehicle GHG standards. EPA is separately promulgating a rule that would...

Court Eyes Next Steps In Fight Over EPA’s 2022 California Emissions Waiver

A federal appellate court is asking EPA and other parties to propose next steps in a long-pending suit over a 2022 EPA preemption waiver for certain California vehicle greenhouse gas standards, after the Supreme Court’s June rejection of the appellate court’s prior conclusion that liquid fuels groups lacked standing to challenge the waiver. The request by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a Sept. 29 order in State of Ohio et al v. EPA...

Truck Makers Urge ‘Major Questions’ Attack On Some Vehicle GHG Limits

Truck and engine makers are pressing EPA to rely on the major questions doctrine, rather than scuttling its underlying greenhouse gas endangerment finding, to undo “Phase 3” truck greenhouse gas standards, citing fears that a legal strategy of relying on the GHG finding gambit is too risky to provide needed regulatory relief. The suggestion in Sept. 22 formal comments highlights broader industry fears in both the truck and auto sectors that EPA’s push to rollback vehicle GHG limits in tandem...

EPA Urges Court To Preserve Oil And Gas Methane Compliance Delay

EPA is resisting environmentalists’ call for a court to immediately vacate the agency’s interim final rule delaying compliance requirements for oil and gas sector methane and other emissions, claiming it “lawfully invoked” a good-cause public comment exemption and that the groups have failed to justify their “extraordinary request.” EPA’s stance laid out in a Sept. 25 opposition motion filed in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The...

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