The Biden Administration

Officials Seek to Allay Fears States Will Misuse EJ Infrastructure Funds

As the White House prepares to distribute billions of dollars in federal infrastructure money, top officials are seeking to allay advisors’ concerns that some states could misuse funds distributed under the Justice40 environmental justice (EJ) program, particularly as they have yet to issue key tools for ensuring the funds reach intended communities. At a Nov. 17 meeting of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), top environment and climate officials pledged to closely scrutinize states’ spending of federal infrastructure...

House Approves Unprecedented Funding For Biden Climate Agenda

After months of intra-party debate, House Democrats have approved a roughly $1.75 trillion budget “reconciliation” package with over $550 billion in climate-related measures, bringing a major portion of the Biden climate agenda closer to enactment as the administration strives to cement global leadership on the issue. Yet, the House’s 220-213 vote on Nov. 19 to advance H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, focuses debate on the Senate, which is all but certain to change at least some aspects of...

EPA names new administrators for regions 2, 4, 8

EPA is announcing that President Joe Biden is appointing new administrators for three EPA regional offices -- Lisa Garcia for Region 2, Daniel Blackman for Region 4, and KC Becker for Region 8. Garcia, who will oversee the agency’s work in New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, is an attorney who served as associate administrator and advisor to EPA Administrators Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy during the Obama administration. Garcia helped to lead a team...

Industry Says EPA Rebuffed Request To Meet Regan On ‘Justice’ Tour

The Louisiana Chemical Association (LCA) says EPA rebuffed its request to meet with Administrator Michael Regan on his environmental justice (EJ) tour through southern states this week, including a Nov. 16 stop in New Orleans, saying the administrator “did not have time.” Greg Bowser, LCA’s president and CEO, is also strongly defending the environmental performance of the state’s industrial sector in advance of potential criticism from Regan, who embarked on his weeklong “Journey for Justice” tour to show that EPA...

Michigan Grants Contested Permit But Asks EPA For Advice On EJ Concerns

Despite rare environmental justice (EJ) objections from EPA, Michigan environmental regulators have issued a controversial air permit for a hot-mix asphalt plant near Flint, though they are asking the agency for advice on how to better address EJ concerns. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy (EGLE) announced Nov. 15 that it has approved a minor source permit for Ajax Materials Corp. in Genesee Township, including setting site-specific conditions and restrictions that “provide safeguards to ensure compliance with...

Biden creates inter-agency group to speed infrastructure

The White House is creating an inter-agency group, including representatives of EPA and multiple other agencies, to oversee implementation of the just-enacted $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that includes various climate- and environment-related provisions. In a Nov. 15 executive order (EO) unveiled shortly before he enacted the infrastructure bill, President Joe Biden created an “Infrastructure Implementation Task Force” that aims to “coordinate effective implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other related significant infrastructure programs within the executive...

Glasgow Talks Boost Push For Democrats To Enact Climate Legislation

Lawmakers, environmentalists, and others are urging congressional Democrats to enact their long-pending climate legislation to help translate the just-concluded Glasgow climate deal into concrete carbon emissions cuts domestically and abroad, and to bolster pressure on China and others to make and fulfill stronger climate pledges. The framing -- articulated before and after countries on Nov. 13 approved the largely process-oriented Glasgow deal -- underscores Democrats’ ongoing efforts to finalize the legislation, as well as widespread views that continued political and...

OIG’s ‘Top’ FY22 Challenges For EPA Bolster Biden’s Key Agenda Items

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) in a new report is citing climate mitigation and adaptation, environmental justice (EJ), chemical safety and scientific integrity among “top management challenges” the agency now faces, bolstering the Biden administration’s focus on these issues at the agency. In its fiscal year 2022 Top Management Challenges report , required annually by Congress, the OIG identifies seven major challenges that will require particular focus by EPA, of which five are newly tagged as “top” priorities. While...

As Regan Begins EJ Tour, Officials See Local Limits On EPA’s Powers

As EPA Administrator Michael Regan begins a days-long tour to highlight environmental justice (EJ) concerns, agency officials are acknowledging some of the limits of their power to address local land use disputes, gentrification and other issues linked to pollution, cleanups and redevelopment in communities living near Superfund sites. Matthew Tejada, director of EPA’s Environmental Justice office, acknowledged during a Nov. 9 National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Call the agency’s long-time difficulty with the gentrification that can occur after a cleanup...

Glasgow Climate Deal’s Reach Hinges On Implementation Of New Pledges

Biden administration officials, environmentalists and others say the final Glasgow agreement is a starting point that formally keeps alive efforts to limit dangerous climate change but depends almost entirely on future implementation and still unrealized concrete emissions reduction actions by individual nations. “As we leave Glasgow, our code word is going to be implementation, follow up, follow through,” international climate envoy John Kerry said Nov. 13 at the conclusion of the talks. “To make this not words on a paper...

Agreement

Fact Sheet


Justice40 Pilots Will Help Speed EPA Infrastructure Spending, McCabe Says

A top EPA official says ongoing Justice40 pilot projects, which seek to ensure that at least 40 percent of the benefits from key federal spending flow to environmental justice (EJ) communities, will help speed distribution of the massive funding boost EPA will get from infrastructure and other legislation while also prioritizing that spending for EJ efforts. Justice40 is “an extremely important program to help us prioritize these resources,” EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe told the agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory...

OIG Says CSB Remains ‘Impaired’ By Lack Of Members Despite Rule Change

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)’s annual report on management challenges facing the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) once again finds that the panel cannot function properly with just one Senate-confirmed member, even after reworking its governing rules to better fit the current “quorum of one." In its Nov. 10 report on CSB’s “top management challenges” for fiscal year 2022, EPA’s OIG -- which oversees the CSB -- renews its prior warnings against a single-member board, finding that...

EPA Pressing DOJ To Ensure Agencies Follow Title VI In NEPA Reviews

EPA’s civil rights office is pressing the Justice Department (DOJ) to require that other agencies ensure recipients of federal funds comply with antidiscrimination provisions in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (CRA) when conducting National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews, saying Title VI compliance goes beyond environmental law compliance. EPA also plans to make that same message clear for recipients of funding from EPA, Lilian Dorka, director of EPA’s External Civil Rights Compliance Office (ECRCO), said during an EPA...

Draft Deal’s GHG, Fossil-Phaseout Goals Win Praise But Disputes Remain

Draft “decisions” from the ongoing Glasgow climate summit that would, for the first time, press countries to speed a phaseout of coal use and fossil fuel subsidies, while also pressing them to offer stronger greenhouse gas targets by the end of next year are winning initial praise from environmentalists. Yet several disagreements remain in the texts released early Nov. 10 by the United Kingdom organizers of the summit, including continued objections by developing countries to pledges regarding climate-related financial support,...

EPA Touts International Efforts To Craft Tough HFC Enforcement Plans

EPA is touting plans to work with key international trading partners, as well as industry and environmental groups, to combat illegal trafficking of climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as the agency ramps up implementation of its new program to sharply phase down the chemicals. “Efforts to phase down HFCs in many countries have had the side effect of creating markets for illegal trade of these harmful chemicals,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during a Nov. 9 side event at the ongoing international...

EPA Revises Children’s Health Policy, Broadening Its Use In Agency Analyses

EPA has for the first time revised its 1995 Policy on Children’s Health, intended to ensure consideration of children’s unique exposures and vulnerability to contaminants in the environment is included in agency analyses and decision-making, resulting in an expanded approach that defines childhood and requires child-specific analyses. “The EPA' s policy is informed by the scientific understanding that children may be at greater risk to environmental contaminants than adults due to differences in behavior and biology and that the effects...

Governors Tout States’ Climate Roles As Biden’s Push Faces Uncertainty

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and other Democratic governors are highlighting the unique abilities of state and local governments to take significant albeit limited steps to address climate change even as the Biden administration is facing doubts about its ability to meet its Glasgow GHG commitments in the face of legal and political uncertainties. “[I]f your house is on fire and your national government may not send in a fire truck right away, you grab a bucket,” Inslee told a...

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