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Trump’s Sweeping Moves To End EJ Programs Sparks Sharp Criticism

President Donald Trump in a sweeping effort is ending all federal environmental justice (EJ) efforts, including revoking a Clinton-era directive that created EPA’s EJ office and directing all agencies to close EJ offices and related programs within 30 days. The moves -- which come in the opening days of Trump’s second term -- are sparking confusion and sharp criticism from advocates and others who have long pushed to address pollution harms in minority and disadvantaged communities. With so many EJ...

Trump EPA Announces Key Personnel Picks Ahead Of Panel Vote On Zeldin

The Trump administration is beginning to fill key leadership posts at EPA, including tapping Eric Amidon, a former top aide to EPA administrator nominee Lee Zeldin, to serve as agency chief of staff, while naming former top officials in EPA’s program offices to top roles. A Jan. 22 email to all agency staff details assignments for nearly two dozen agency posts, including Amidon, who “spent the past decade working closely” with Zeldin, including as chief of staff during the former...

Deputy Pick Expects Trump EPA Enforcement Focus On Drinking Water

David Fotouhi, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as EPA’s second-in-command, has not spoken publicly since he was tapped, but in comments before last November’s election, said he expects the new administration to generally return to its first-term enforcement focus though with some new priorities, including drinking water. Drinking water enforcement will be “first on the list, based on public statements we’ve seen from the campaign,” Fotouhi, a partner at Gibson & Dunn, said during an Oct. 22 webcast the...

Trump Announces Plans To Target Host Of Biden Environmental Policies

Within hours of being inaugurated for a second term, President Donald Trump announced plans to issue a series of executive actions to begin scaling back a variety of Biden-era environmental initiatives that are at odds with the new administration’s goal of bolstering domestic fossil fuel production. Many of the Biden-era actions that Trump is targeting related to climate change, including policies that curb carbon emissions via a reduction in use of fossil fuels. This includes once again removing the U.S...

Biden Order Gives EPA, HHS Power To Recommend EtO Sterilizer Waivers

President Joe Biden in one of his final actions has issued an executive order specifying a process for commercial sterilizers to use when requesting waivers from EPA’s tougher air toxics rule limiting emissions of the solvent ethylene oxide (EtO), delegating significant responsibility to the agency and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). “It is the policy of my Administration to safeguard the reliability of our Nation's supply of safe medical products. To advance orderly implementation of the EtO Rule,...

Trump’s OMB Pick Defends Plan For Dramatic Budget, Workforce Changes

Russell Vought, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to again head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is defending his plans for a dramatic overhaul of key federal budget, regulatory and workforce practices at EPA and other agencies. During a contentious Jan. 15 confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), Vought pushed back against Democratic senators as he defended his plans to impound congressionally appropriated funds, slash regulations and bend EPA and other agencies to Trump’s...

Judges Eye Dismissing ‘Affirmative Defense’ Air Suit On Standing Grounds

Appellate judges say they may dismiss an industry coalition’s suit against EPA’s rule stripping “affirmative defense” provisions from air permits, citing doubts over the group’s standing to sue because it is declining to disclose any of its members. Nevertheless, during Jan. 14 oral arguments in SSM Litigation Group v. EPA , Judges Neomi Rao and Justin Walker, both Trump appointees, and Senior Judge Douglas Ginsberg, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, otherwise seemed sympathetic to industry’s arguments that the longstanding exemptions...

Trump Selects Experienced Lawyer To Serve As EPA’s Deputy Administrator

President-elect Donald Trump has selected David Fotouhi, a former top EPA counsel in his first administration and a leading industry lawyer, to serve as the agency’s deputy administrator for his second term, a move that will bring a more experienced environmental policy professional to the agency’s top ranks than Administrator-designate Lee Zeldin. In addition, Fotouhi, who served EPA’s acting general counsel in Trump’s first term and is currently a partner at the Gibson Dunn law firm, has advocated for using...

EPA Approves Washington Criteria To Replace Controversial Federal Values

EPA has approved the state of Washington’s adoption of 145 revised water quality criteria to protect human health (HHC) from toxics, measures that will replace controversial federal values that industry groups are challenging in an effort to prevent broader adoption of their increased fish consumption rates (FCR) that drive more protective values. The agency’s approval of the standards could complicate industry efforts to have a federal court -- or the incoming Trump administration -- vacate the standards. In a notice...

Former EPA Deputy Counsel Said To Be Considered For Top EPA Air Post

Adam Gustafson, an environmental lawyer for Boeing who served as deputy general counsel in the first Trump EPA, is reportedly being considered to lead the Office of Air and Radiation in the incoming administration, according to two sources familiar with the issue. Reached for comment by Inside EPA , Gustafson said, “I have no comment.” If nominated and confirmed, Gustafson would bring significant experience to a position that is expected to play a key role in the incoming administration’s deregulatory...

EPA Proposes Not To Regulate Nine Chemicals Under Drinking Water Law

EPA has issued preliminary determinations not to regulate nine substances from the most-recent list of contaminants it identified for possible regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), saying that while the substances present risks to human health, they do not occur frequently enough in public drinking water systems to justify regulation. In a prepublication Federal Register notice that EPA posted to its website Jan. 7, the agency says it has decided not to regulate nine substances and substance...

EPA Defends TSCA Framework Rule As Ensuring Lawful Evaluations

EPA is defending its revised TSCA “framework” rule establishing procedures for how it conducts evaluations of existing chemicals from industry and unions’ legal challenges, saying the rule “ensures” evaluations meet the toxics law’s requirements -- even as the incoming Trump administration is expected to drop those positions. The agency in a Dec. 20 brief responding to consolidated industry and union challenges to its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk evaluation rule, known as United Steelworkers, et al., v. EPA ,...

North Dakota Threatens To Sue Over EPA’s Failure To Act On CCR Petition

North Dakota Attorney General (AG) Drew Wrigley (R) is threatening to sue EPA over its failure to act on the state’s 2023 petition to operate its own coal ash permitting program within the statutory timeframe, highlighting the growing role states are expected to play in the program in 2025 given EPA’s failure to write a federal permitting rule. The threatened suit likely clears the way for the incoming Trump administration to agree to binding deadlines to act on the Roughrider...

EPA Grants Preemption Waiver For California Small Offroad Engine Rules

EPA has granted California’s request for a federal preemption waiver for its regulations addressing emissions from small offroad engines, one of at least four requests the Biden administration was expected to approve in its final days though the fate of two other pending waiver petitions for locomotives and truck fleets remain uncertain. EPA in a notice set for publication in the Jan. 6 Federal Register announces that it late last month approved 2016 and 2021 amendments to California’s Small...

EPA Haze Plan Denials Escalate Clash With States Ahead Of Trump Transition

EPA’s disapprovals of more state plans to reduce regional haze are escalating a growing clash about how to implement the haze program ahead of a likely push by states, industry and the incoming Trump administration to ease and streamline the program that is behind schedule and seen as excessively onerous by its critics. In three Federal Register notices issued Dec. 2, EPA partially disapproved the state implementation plans (SIPs) of Utah, North Dakota and Wyoming for the haze program’s...

EPA Partially Backs Expanded TRI Reporting Rules For Waste Incinerators

EPA has partly agreed to environmentalists’ 2023 petition asking officials to initiate a rulemaking subjecting waste incinerators to chemical release reporting under the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), though the agency agreed to regulate a much narrower set of facilities than requested and it is not clear whether the Trump administration will pursue the rule. In a Dec. 20 response to the petition, submitted by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Energy Justice Network (EJN) and signed by hundreds...

Lawmakers Urge Zeldin To Quickly Roll Back TSCA Formaldehyde Review

House Republicans are urging EPA Administrator-designate Lee Zeldin to quickly reverse the Biden administration’s TSCA risk evaluation of formaldehyde as well as scrap an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of the chemical and exempt key uses of formaldehyde from TSCA regulation. The push by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) in a letter to Zeldin highlights the pressure the incoming Trump administration faces from congressional Republicans to address long-running industry concerns about EPA’s approach to formaldehyde. Sessions is the chairman of...

EPA Urges 5th Circuit To Dismiss Suit Over LDEQ SOCMI Deadline Extension

EPA is urging the 5th Circuit to dismiss a lawsuit Denka Performance Elastomer (DPE) brought asking the court to require the agency to abide by a two-year deadline extension Louisiana officials granted the company to meet strict new chloroprene limits in an EPA air toxics rule, arguing the company is not challenging a final action subject to court review. The agency details its arguments in a Dec. 20 brief in the case, DPE and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ)...

D.C. Circuit Scraps More RFS Waiver Denials As Summer E15 Approval Fails

In twin blows for biofuel producers, an appeals court has vacated EPA’s 2023 denials of small refiners’ compliance waivers from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) -- a move the agency did not oppose -- just days after Congress stripped a long-sought year-round authorization of 15 percent ethanol fuel (E15) from spending legislation at the last minute. In a Dec. 23 per curiam order , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected EPA’s Oct. 21...

EPA Drops GNP Expansion, Waste Combustor Air Rule Amid Legal Fights

EPA appears to have halted work on rules to expand the Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) interstate emissions program and dramatically toughen air standards on municipal waste combustors, amid a national stay on the GNP and concerted industry resistance to tighter limits on waste combustor emissions, and likely Trump EPA reversals of both measures. The rules were “withdrawn” from White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pre-publication review on Dec. 19, according to OMB’s website. EPA proposed earlier this year...

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