The Biden Administration

GOP Hill Control Could Spark Budget Fights On Biden Climate Priorities

The prospect that Republicans will control both chambers of Congress next year could create new budget challenges for the Biden administration’s climate agenda -- including possible bids to offset the new climate law’s spending with EPA and other agency funding cuts or enact restrictive policy riders in spending bills, observers say. “If Congress is all of one party, it heightens the possibility that appropriations [for federal agencies] wind up getting contested,” Republican strategist Mike McKenna tells Inside EPA’s Climate Extra...

Judges Skeptical Of Environmentalists’ Standing In NEPA Rule Challenge

Appellate court judges appeared skeptical of environmentalists’ standing to challenge a Trump-era rule dramatically scaling back how agencies implement the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), given that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is working to rewrite the 2020 rule though some judges also sought assurances that CEQ will soon revise the rule. “Why in the world wouldn’t we just hold this thing? . . . It looks like to me it’s going in your direction,” Judge James...

EPA Officials Tout Staffing, Hiring Plans For EJ, Civil Rights Office

EPA officials are touting their plans to bolster environmental justice (EJ) and external civil rights staffing, along with ambitious hiring plans, to fill the new program office launched last month, saying that while hiring notices have yet to be posted, when the agency starts filling these roles they will look to advocates as potential employees. “We are going to be moving to have more than 200 people [at] EPA dedicated to environmental justice and civil rights and conflict prevention,” Marianne...

EPA Guide May Complicate Permitting Under Rights Law, Lawyer Warns

As EPA weighs comments on its landmark new guidance on how environmental justice (EJ) considerations can be addressed in permits, an industry lawyer is warning that the measure exceeds the agency’s legal authorities under the civil rights law and may complicate the permitting process for both states and industry. Karen Bennett, an attorney at Lewis Brisbois, warns that EPA’s new guidance, laid out in a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) document that the agency released in August, imposes “broad environmental justice...

Groups Intensify Calls For Bold EPA Steps Despite West Virginia Ruling

A new report from several progressive groups urges EPA and other agencies to take “more and bolder risks” on greenhouse gas and other rules in response to the Supreme Court’s embrace of the major questions legal doctrine, underscoring debates on whether strategic caution or a “flood-the-zone” strategy is the best response for backers of strong regulation. “Agencies should not default to an exhaustive, slow-moving administrative process to proactively defend against potential legal challenges,” says the Oct. 6 report from the...

EPA Officials Laud NEJAC For Role In Creation Of New Program Office

EPA officials are lauding the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee (NEJAC) for its longstanding work they say helped lead to the historic launch of the agency’s new Office of Environmental Justice & External Civil Rights, while urging NEJAC to help hold the agency accountable for delivering on its EJ commitments. Senior EJ Advisor Robin Collins told the group at its Sept. 28 meeting that NEJAC “started us” on this path “30 years ago” when it would have been impossible to...

EPA’s Small Conflict Center Expected To Play Big Role In New EJ Office

Correction Appended EPA’s Conflict Prevention & Resolution Center (CPRC), a small office that was previously housed in the agency’s Office of General Counsel (OGC), will play a big role in the newly launched Environmental Justice & External Civil Rights program office, with the center’s neutral negotiators seeking to help EPA, funding recipients facing civil rights investigations, and at times, the complainants reach informal agreements to resolve discrimination complaints. The center, established in 1999, currently has only five full-time equivalents...

EPA Poised To Announce Merger Of Environmental Justice, Rights Offices

PARK CITY, UT -- EPA Administrator Michael Regan is poised to announce the creation of a new program office combining the agency’s existing environmental justice (EJ) and civil rights offices that will be co-equal with the current media-specific programs, fulfilling a long-standing Biden administration goal to strengthen the agency’s overall EJ efforts. Robin Morris Collin, Regan’s senior advisor for EJ, told state regulators here that EPA is creating a new EJ office as a national program office that will combine...

Podesta To Oversee Biden’s Climate Spending As McCarthy Steps Down

Longtime Democratic presidential advisor John Podesta is returning to the White House to oversee implementation of the massive new climate law with $369 billion in spending on clean energy and other low-carbon efforts, just as National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy is poised to depart that role. Podesta told the New York Times , which first reported that President Joe Biden has tapped Podesta as a senior advisor, that his new job will involve “throwing the weight of federal government policy...

EPA seeks to assure employees on safety threats

EPA is seeking to assure its employees that it prioritizes their safety while urging them to report suspicious activities to local FBI field offices amid recent threats on government workers following the bureau’s search of former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. “EPA does not tolerate threatening behavior and no one is expected to tolerate such behavior while performing their work duties,” EPA said in an Aug. 19 mass email to its employees. The agency said employee safety is its top...

GOP Former Officials Decry Biden’s Failure To Nominate OIRA Leader

Former top White House regulatory review officials in Republican administrations are decrying the effects of President Joe Biden’s failure to nominate a candidate to lead the Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), saying the lack of a Senate-confirmed official weakens the office’s role when negotiating rules with EPA and other agencies. Paul Ray, the former OIRA administrator during the Trump administration who is now the director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage...

Former EPA children’s health official appeals dismissal

Ruth Etzel, the former head of EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP), is continuing to argue she was improperly removed from her position, appealing to a federal court the administrative dismissal of her claims that she was retaliated against for voicing concerns that EPA’s lead strategy was not stringent enough. “Notice is hereby given that Ruth A. Etzel hereby petitions the court for review of the orders of the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB)” that became final on May...

Houston calls DOJ’s EJ probe ‘a slap in the face’

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) says a new environmental justice (EJ) investigation announced July 22 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) into allegations that the city’s failure to adequately address illegal waste dumping complaints violate Black and Latino residents’ civil rights is unwarranted and “a slap in the face.” “From day one, the City of Houston under my administration has prioritized the needs of communities of color that are historically under-resourced and underserved,” says Turner, who is Black and has...

Biden Vows To Tackle Climate ‘Emergency’ But Defers Formal Action

President Biden is calling climate change an “emergency” and vowing additional actions “in the coming weeks” that will harness his executive powers to combat the problem, but is stopping short at least for now of formally declaring it a national emergency under existing executive authorities, including a decades old emergency statute. “Let me be clear, climate change is an emergency,” Biden said in a July 20 speech in Brayton, MA, speaking on the site of a closed coal plant slated...

Supreme Court’s ‘Major Questions’ Focus Could Hamper Biden EJ Efforts

The Supreme Court’s decision to constrain EPA’s greenhouse gas regulatory authority under the “major questions” doctrine may similarly hamper the Biden administration’s efforts to elevate environmental justice (EJ) and climate change across several agencies, according to a former Obama EPA official. The court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA “is introducing a lot of uncertainty” into already novel EJ efforts, argued Stacey Halliday, who served as an Obama EPA special counsel and is now at Beveridge & Diamond, during...

EPA Staff Science Integrity Survey Shows Ongoing Concerns Under Biden

Staff responses to EPA’s 2021 internal survey on scientific integrity show continued concerns over alleged violations of science policies under the Trump administration alongside lingering fears of interference from career managers and an ineffective scientific integrity apparatus, building on a recent survey of TSCA staff that detailed deep tensions and alleged integrity violations. Documents that EPA recently posted online in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the whistleblower group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) show...

EPA union seeks science, climate measures in contract

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, EPA’s largest employee union, is launching a campaign to include scientific integrity and climate-related measures in a new contract, as negotiations with agency management are set to begin June 13. AFGE says in a June 8 press release that the 7,500 EPA AFGE members held a virtual town hall meeting June 7 to kick off the campaign and vowed to include measures in a new contract to promote scientific integrity as...

SBA's May 25 Comments

May 25 Comments By Coalition Of Environmental Groups


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