COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic is having broad implications for the federal government, as well as EPA's responses to COVID-19. This temporary section consolidates our exclusive news on the virus, breaking hot documents, and more.

Topic Subtitle
The coronavirus pandemic is having broad implications for the federal government, as well as EPA's responses to COVID-19. This temporary section consolidates our exclusive news on the virus, breaking hot documents, and more.

EPA Issues Indoor Air Guidance To Bolster Future COVID Protections

EPA has issued guidance aimed at improving indoor air in buildings as part of President Joe Biden’s broad plan for transitioning the United States to a post-pandemic way of life, making recommendations for indoor air assessments, ventilation and filtration improvements to buildings of all kinds, such as schools and colleges. EPA March 17 released the guidance , dubbed the “Clean Air In Buildings Challenge,” moments after it was announced by the White House. In its announcement, the White House said...

EPA Reaches Deal With Its Largest Union On Return To Office In May

EPA has reached a deal with its largest employee union after months of talks on a return plan for workers heading back to work in the office “no sooner than” May 2, according to the union, paving the way for a return to in-person work after more than two years of largely remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed March 5, EPA agreed with the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, which...

Court Ducks ‘Major Questions’ In Vaccine Suits But Eyes Upcoming EPA Test

The Supreme Court’s new rulings on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine rules for general industry and the health care sector appear to avoid broader limits on agencies’ authority, but one of the decisions incorporates the “major questions” doctrine that observers say could be fatal in upcoming arguments to EPA’s power plant rules. In a pair of Jan. 13 decisions, the justices blocked implementation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) “emergency” vaccination standard that would have applied to all...

U.S. GHG Emissions Rebound In 2021 As Economy Recovers From Virus

As the U.S. economy started to recover last year from the covid pandemic, greenhouse gas emissions surged toward pre-pandemic levels, with some researchers suggesting the tally underscores the need for additional federal climate policy to meet the Biden administration’s 2030 climate targets. Research firm the Rhodium Group in a preliminary estimate released Jan. 10 finds 2021 GHG emissions increased 6.2% from 2020 levels, though they are still 5% below 2019 levels. The rebound in emissions was largely expected, as much...

High Court’s Review Of Vaccine Rules Could Set New Limits On EPA Powers

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument Jan. 7 in challenges to COVID-19 vaccination mandates from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), but its decision could set new precedent curbing the regulatory authority of EPA and many other agencies. A coalition of Republican governors, industry groups and employers are urging the justices to halt implementation of the OSHA and CMS rules while separate challenges to each policy play out...

NAS Eyeing Wastewater Surveillance To Track Diseases Beyond COVID-19

The National Academy of Sciences is poised to begin a two-part study on testing municipal wastewater as a way to trace, prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases beyond COVID-19, providing guidance to EPA and other federal agencies that began using the monitoring approach during the pandemic. The study is being funding by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) but will draw on ongoing interagency research efforts of which EPA is a part, according to the Centers...

EPA, Union Reach ‘Landmark’ Deals On Key Remote-Work Contract Issues

EPA and its largest employee union have signed “landmark” agreements on three major contract issues -- telework, remote work and work schedules -- resolving issues that will be key to the agency’s work during the ongoing pandemic in agreements that union officials say will also shape the future of work at the agency. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238, which represents 7,500 agency personnel across the country, and EPA management signed the agreements over the past few...

OIG, EPA At Odds On Call To Craft State RCRA Policies For Future Pandemic

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is rejecting EPA plans for addressing two of its five recommendations for ensuring state waste programs function adequately in the event of a future pandemic after finding that the COVID-19 pandemic led states to slow inspections of hazardous waste management facilities and to cite fewer violations per inspection than in the previous year. According to the OIG’s Dec. 1 report , while EPA’s waste and enforcement offices are agreeing to review data and work...

OIG finds marginal drop in air monitoring during pandemic

EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) in a new report finds only limited impacts on overall levels of air quality monitoring from the COVID-19 pandemic, which generally disrupted state and federal regulators’ activities, but the OIG also found wide variation in the outcomes at different sites. In its Nov. 17 report , the OIG says, the “pandemic marginally impacted the total number of nationwide compliance monitoring activities at facilities that emit air pollution. However, activities varied widely among states and...

Democrats Eye EJ Bill To Block Future Use Of COVID Enforcement Discretion

House Democrats are considering hearings and possible legislation to codify a Clinton-era environmental justice (EJ) executive order in an effort aimed in part at blocking EPA from issuing a blanket enforcement discretion policy such as the one the Trump administration put in place during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The controversial policy allowed regulated entities to skip routine monitoring and reporting requirements due to the lockdown in the first half of 2020 that prevented inspectors from site...

Grijalva to probe Trump EPA’s eased enforcement amid pandemic

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) is planning hearings to investigate what he says are the public health harms from the Trump EPA’s relaxation of enforcement during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The hearings are expected to include data showing a correlation between COVID death rates and exposure to air pollution, as well as a recent report from the Vermont Law School’s Environmental Justice Clinic that documents EPA negligence in protecting people of color, indigenous people...

EPA Drops COVID Policies That Eased Disinfectant Notification Mandates

EPA is terminating three Pesticide Registration Notice (PRN) amendments issued in 2020 that eased notification requirements for disinfectant manufacturers in order to alleviate the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, saying there is no longer a “continuing need” for them. While the agency is offering a one-year grace period before the Sept. 15 termination takes effect, its move marks the latest step to roll back measures designed to boost availability of disinfectants that can kill the coronavirus, based...

EPA Aims To Settle COVID-19 Enforcement Suit After Partial Court Win

EPA is entering settlement talks with a company that sued over the agency’s aggressive enforcement of disinfectant rules as part of its COVID-19 response, moving to avert any adverse precedent after a judge partly rejected the firm’s claims that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not EPA, has exclusive authority over its products. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held a settlement conference Aug. 19 in Tzumi Innovations v. EPA , following a joint letter...

EPA eyes November as earliest return-to-office timeframe

EPA is telling employees they should expect to return to their offices in November while acknowledging that date could slip due to the highly contagious Delta variant that is raising COVID-19 infection rates across the country. According to E&E News , Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe laid out the November timeline in an Aug. 11 internal email. She said EPA projected in mid-July a “no-sooner-than” date of Nov. 7 for staff’s return to offices. Yet that “earliest possible date” was...

EPA Submits Final Return-To-Work Plan To OMB For Review

The Biden EPA has drafted a post-pandemic plan for staff to return to their offices and submitted it to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for review, Inside EPA has learned. The draft plan was crafted without the input of its union representatives, according to one source, who says the unions were expecting to review the plan at the same time it was sent to OMB but had yet to receive it. An EPA spokesman confirms...

EPA Scraps Approval Of COVID-19 Disinfectant, Citing ‘Misconduct’

EPA has reversed the Trump administration’s emergency approval of the surface coating SurfaceWise2, one of the few “durable” disinfectants effective against COVID-19, touting not only federal health authorities’ revised pandemic guidance downplaying the need for deep cleaning but also newly uncovered “misconduct” by the company. Less than a year after granting SurfaceWise2 the first-ever Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) public health emergency exemption waiver for a surface disinfectant, EPA announced on July 8 that it would block all...

Study finds COVID shutdown had little effect on PM2.5

A study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Canadian health officials finds that the recent economic shutdowns due to COVID-19 had a marginal effect in reducing fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the United States, with weather and other factors exerting more influence. The study , “Effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on fine particulate matter concentrations,” published June 23 in the journal Science Advances, finds that weather patterns and long-term trends in PM2.5...

EPA lifts caps on employees allowed in workplace

EPA and other federal agencies will no longer limit the number of employees allowed in workplaces, the Biden administration announced June 10. According to June 10 guidance released by the White House, federal caps on personnel in their workplaces will be lifted but the administration will also keep in place the expansive telework policy started during the coronavirus pandemic, which could slow the return of workers to federal buildings. The guidance, first reported by the Washington Post , was...

Pages

Not a subscriber? Request 30 days free access to exclusive environmental policy reporting.