Outlook 2020

OUTLOOK 2020

The major environmental policy issues heading into the 2020 election

Inside EPA's Outlook 2020 is a comprehensive special report on what's ahead for EPA as President Donald Trump and his Democratic rivals prepare for the 2020 election. Even as EPA steps up efforts to roll back individual Obama-era rules before the election, administration officials are crafting a second-term agenda that focuses on broader, wholesale efforts to limit the regulatory reach of future executives. Democrats, meanwhile, stand little chance of enacting broad affirmative legislation before the election, but they are seeking to frame the party’s environmental case and lay a predicate for action should Trump lose his re-election bid. The partisan battle comes as EPA prepares for its 50th anniversary. In addition, California and many other states seeking stricter rules are pushing back on EPA efforts to limit their authority. As in prior years, this report also focuses on the legislation, litigation and rulemaking efforts in the coming year on major air, climate, toxics, water, waste, and other policies.

Or read individual articles below.

Environmentalists Eye Global Pacts To Pressure U.S. Sustainability Actions

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other major environmental groups plan this year to push for aggressive global agreements among countries and industries on sustainability efforts including tackling climate change and biodiversity, in a bid to pressure the U.S. government and companies to adopt similarly stringent programs domestically. “2020 is so important,” says Sheila Bonini, WWF’s senior vice president of Private Sector Engagement, in a recent interview. She notes that many corporate sustainability goals are set to expire in the...

EPA’s Nascent TSCA Program Faces Major Legal, Scientific Challenges

As EPA scrambles to step up its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) program following Congress’ 2016 reform of the law, the agency is facing a series of scientific tests as well as challenges to its methodologies that may stymie its efforts to comply with the new law’s steep deadlines and drive new lawsuits from environmentalists. For example, the agency is scrambling to meet the new law’s deadline to complete the first 10 evaluations of existing chemicals by the end of...

As Utilities Struggle To Meet Existing SDWA Limits, Experts Eye New Challenges

As utilities struggle to meet existing Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) standards, a group of experts is preparing to unveil a plan that seeks to address a broad range of issues that appear to be hampering compliance, including climate change, aging infrastructure and a growing number of unregulated contaminants. While many of the experts, convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), are pointing to a combination of local, state and federal actions that could improve the quality of water,...

Environmentalists Brace For Possible Rollback Of Regional Haze Program

Environmentalists are bracing for a possible EPA rollback of the agency’s regional haze emissions reduction program in 2020, given significant uncertainty over the content of a long-pending proposed revision to the program that is slated for release sometime this year and over the Trump administration’s broad deregulatory agenda. EPA’s haze program aims to satisfy a Clean Air Act requirement to restore visibility to natural conditions in “Class I” areas – national parks and wilderness areas -- with an end goal...

NAAQS Program Changes May Permanently Overhaul Review Of Standards

Correction Appended The Trump administration’s sweeping changes to the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) review process will culminate in final decisions on updating the ozone and particulate matter (PM) limits as early as this year, and the reforms could permanently change the agency’s future reviews by broadly discouraging stricter standards. The overhaul, launched by former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and continued by current agency chief Andrew Wheeler, includes streamlining and accelerating NAAQS reviews by combining previously...

Public-Private Campaigns Seen As Focus Of Bid To Target Plastic Waste

Federal agencies, lawmakers, private industry and environmental groups are eyeing joint campaigns to fight increasing water pollution and other adverse impacts of excessive plastic waste in 2020, with efforts such as boosting recycling, cutting the use of unneeded disposables, and enacting programs to remove waste from waters. The multifaceted efforts to combat plastic waste highlight a growing trend toward collaboration in environmental protection, as government officials and private entities all focus their attention on a common goal even without a...

Absent Feds, States Expected To Lead On PFAS But Face Legal Hurdles

States are expected to continue to lead efforts to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the face of slow regulatory action from EPA and Congress’ failure to push through legislation late in 2019 that would have forced EPA regulation of the chemicals under federal drinking water, hazardous waste and clean water laws. States “in 2020 will do what needs to be done” to protect communities from toxic chemicals, says a citizen coalition source, despite what this source says is...

California Faces Tough Climate Program Test Amid Fights With Trump

California leaders will face a difficult test this year to advance their pioneering climate change programs, amid the Trump administration’s aggressive regulatory and legal challenges to its efforts to significantly curb vehicle greenhouse gases and advance cap-and-trade markets with international partners. In addition, state leaders face continued struggles in trying to prod local governments to shift their land-use policies in a more climate-friendly direction that relies more on dense development and transit and less on personal vehicles. “There is an...

Trump’s Paris Exit Timing Complicates Future Of Global Carbon Efforts

President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris Agreement this November complicates the near future of global efforts to tackle climate change, as other countries face calls to ramp up carbon cuts even as Trump’s move appears to be slowing momentum for such strategies. Several consequential events for international climate policy are looming this year, highlighted by a December deadline for countries to strengthen their greenhouse gas targets under the Paris deal. This comes shortly...

Pending Suits Signal New WOTUS Definition Unlikely To Clarify CWA’s Scope

Ongoing litigation over the reach of the Clean Water Act (CWA) suggests that the Trump administration’s planned new definition of waters of the United States (WOTUS), slated for release early this year, is unlikely to provide the clarity that supporters are touting and will do little to diminish the long-running uncertainty over the law’s scope. Already the confusion over frequently changing definitions is playing out in a criminal enforcement case where a California man is seeking to overturn his conviction...

As Climate Suits Keeps Issue Alive, Nuisance Cases Reach Key Venue Rulings

Federal appellate courts are expected in the coming months to issue key decisions on whether a raft of climate change nuisance cases filed by state and local governments against major oil companies can be heard under state common law or must be moved to federal courts where they would face an uphill battle, with action poised to keep the issue alive throughout 2020. Several appeals courts will hold oral arguments on the venue fights in the first part of the...

CEI’s Ebell Urges EPA To Complete Rollbacks By May To Avoid CRA Repeal

Myron Ebell, a leading deregulatory advocate, is watching closely as EPA scrambles to complete key deregulatory actions in the first few months of 2020 in an effort to finalize the rules before mid-May after which they may be vulnerable to repeal efforts under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) should Democrats sweep upcoming elections. In an interview with Inside EPA , Ebell -- director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) Center for Energy & Environment who led the Trump transition team...

NYU’s Hayes: ‘Highly Divisive Rulemakings’ Face ‘Very Serious Litigation’

State attorneys general (AGs) are among those leading efforts to block the Trump administration’s stepped-up effort to roll back current regulatory requirements and limit the reach of future rules. David Hayes is the executive director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at New York University’s School of Law, also known as the State Impact Center. The group supports state AGs in defending and promoting clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies. Inside EPA ’s Doug Obey spoke...

Democratic Presidential Candidates’ GHG Plans Rely On Novel Policies

Several Democratic presidential candidates’ plans for tackling climate change including a host of novel and aggressive policy proposals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with environmentalists seeing the election as prime opportunity to push strict progressive strategies including the Green New Deal (GND). “Voters are saying that climate is a top priority for them, which has never happened before. . . . Even when Congress was considering climate legislation a decade ago, we didn’t see this kind of demand for it...

Amid Major Deregulation, Trump Pursues Limited Environment Pitches

President Donald Trump and his allies enter the 2020 election season poised to tout their aggressive deregulatory record, even as they selectively try to promote a handful of water and toxics measures in an apparent bid to blunt possible defections from voters concerned about climate change and other environment issues. That dynamic has critics of the Trump administration acknowledging they must continue pressing their substantive criticism of his deregulatory policies -- and his repeated pledges to gut EPA’s budget –...

Amid 2020 Campaign, Hill Democrats Prepare Climate, Environment Pitch

House Democrats enter 2020 poised to elaborate on a climate change policy agenda that stands little chance of immediate enactment but that will help frame the party’s environmental case for the November election and lay a predicate for action in the next Congress should President Donald Trump lose his re-election bid. Some longtime environment policy watchers even contend that such legislative work is a more meaningful barometer of future policy than the ambitious climate plans being floated by the various...

Trump Deregulatory Agenda Faces Test Over ‘Cooperative Federalism’

Trump administration efforts to roll back environmental rules faces a key test in 2020 as many states are claiming that EPA officials are promoting “cooperative federalism” to give states more power to implement environmental laws when they are really using the phrase as cover for their broad deregulatory agenda. The administration’s attitude toward “‘states’ rights’ and ‘cooperative federalism’ only makes sense when viewed through this policy lens,” argues Gregory Bibler, an attorney with Goodwin Law, in a Dec. 13 American...

EPA Faces Competing Calls On Agenda For Upcoming 50th Anniversary

As EPA launches a year-long public campaign to mark its upcoming 50th anniversary it is facing competing calls on whether to issue any major policies as part of the effort, with deregulatory proponents urging the agency to solidify a new rulemaking method that could encourage weaker standards while environmentalists seek strict new rules. The agency’s 50th anniversary will take place on Dec. 2, capping a year that will also see notable anniversaries of some major environmental laws including the Clean...

Trump Eyes More Wholesale Deregulatory Moves In Second Term Agenda

EPA is looking to expand its deregulatory agenda by continuing to make wholesale changes to the way it develops future regulations in addition to moving piecemeal rollbacks of Obama-era measures, efforts it will continue into 2020 and beyond if President Donald Trump wins a second term. A senior White House official tells Inside EPA that planning for a second-term agenda is well under way, with the caveat that officials also know they must work to complete top priorities in...

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