Outlook 2022

OUTLOOK 2022

Biden EPA’s ambitious agenda faces multiple tests ahead of pivotal midterms

Inside EPA's Outlook 2022 is our special report on the year ahead for environmental and climate change policy and the numerous tests – legal, political, and technical -- the Biden administration will face as it advances its ambitious agenda at EPA and other agencies. Implementing the bipartisan infrastructure law is a case study as officials struggle to speed priority projects while still ensuring robust environmental reviews, face a host of hurdles to replace lead service lines and grapple with quickly distributing billions of dollars in grants for clean technologies. In addition, the Supreme Court is slated to hear a series of cases that could significantly curtail EPA’s authority to write climate and other rules and regulate wastewater discharges. In addition, Republicans are testing their environmental messaging ahead of what could be a pivotal November midterm election in which they hope to re-capture one or both chambers of Congress. And EPA must overcome numerous challenges as it writes dozens of major rules addressing air, climate, toxics, water, waste, and other policies.

EPA Prioritizes Recycling But Faces Doubts Over New Policies, Authorities

EPA in 2022 is expected to take an active role in pressing forward sustainable materials management, recycling and waste reduction measures, in light of congressional and administrative efforts but the agency is facing questions over whether or how it will extend its limited authorities in this area. In addition, the agency is facing a major battle – pitting the chemical industry against the paper sector and environmentalists -- as it weighs whether or how to regulate pyrolysis, a technology that...

EPA Prepares Blitz Of TSCA Actions Despite Office’s Resource Crunch

EPA’s TSCA program is preparing a long list of chemical risk evaluations, risk management rules and other policy actions for 2022, many under tight statutory deadlines, even as the agency’s chemicals chief has acknowledged the office is underfunded and understaffed. “The workload is ambitious, and it is coming out with simultaneous messaging from the assistant administrator that they don’t have the resources to do the work. It will be difficult to get it all accomplished in 2022,” Charlotte Bertrand, a...

EPA Prepares Blitz Of TSCA Actions Despite Office’s Resource Crunch

EPA’s TSCA program is preparing a long list of chemical risk evaluations, risk management rules and other policy actions for 2022, many under tight statutory deadlines, even as the agency’s chemicals chief has acknowledged the office is underfunded and understaffed. “The workload is ambitious, and it is coming out with simultaneous messaging from the assistant administrator that they don’t have the resources to do the work. It will be difficult to get it all accomplished in 2022,” Charlotte Bertrand, a...

EPA Poised For IRIS Push After Decade Of Uncertainty But Hurdles Remain

EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) office appears poised for a comeback in 2022, as a reform effort that began in 2011 nears the finish line and officials have reversed Trump-era changes seen as sidelining its work, but it remains unclear whether the program can increase its output and how broad its re-energized agenda will be. 2021 brought a cascade of good news to the beleaguered IRIS program, starting with release of a long-awaited update to the “handbook” that sets...

EPA Poised For IRIS Push After Decade Of Uncertainty But Hurdles Remain

EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) office appears poised for a comeback in 2022, as a reform effort that began in 2011 nears the finish line and officials have reversed Trump-era changes seen as sidelining its work, but it remains unclear whether the program can increase its output and how broad its re-energized agenda will be. 2021 brought a cascade of good news to the beleaguered IRIS program, starting with release of a long-awaited update to the “handbook” that sets...

As the Clean Water Act Turns 50, Debate Continues Over Its Scope

Congress passed the Clean Water Act (CWA) 50 years ago to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters, but just which waters it should cover remains the subject of active debate and ongoing rulemaking, with some legal experts questioning whether the Biden administration can provide the desired clarity. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers under multiple administrations have attempted to define through regulation the meaning of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), a...

Key Air Toxics Policy Decisions Await As EPA Faces Heavy Workload

EPA is slated to issue at least 20 proposed and final air toxics rules in 2022, including high-profile measures governing power plants and other sectors, measures which will drive decisions about its approach to the entire program as pressure mounts to use more-conservative risk assessments, account for cumulative risks and use community air monitoring, among other steps. In the coming months, EPA will both reconsider Trump-era air toxics rules and write new ones, in line with a busy schedule of...

EPA, States Face Looming NAAQS Dilemma On ‘Exceptional’ Events Waivers

EPA and states face an increasingly acute dilemma over how to set and enforce federal air quality standards in the face of evidence suggesting tougher limits are needed, and the increasing relevance of “exceptional” events such as wildfires, for which states require waivers, that complicate their attainment of the standards. Large wildfires “risk eroding progress” in air quality, Barbara Turpin, a professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of North Carolina, who is advising EPA on its review of its...

Finance Agencies’ Climate Risk Rules May Shift Capital From Fossil Fuels

Key financial regulators in the coming months are poised to require banks and publicly traded companies to detail the risks they face from climate change, a move environmentalists say is a first step to shifting funds away from high-carbon assets and activities most threatened by climate damages. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has already issued draft supervisory guidance to large banks – urging them to incorporate “physical” and “transition” climate risks into existing considerations while also...

Finance Agencies’ Climate Risk Rules May Shift Capital From Fossil Fuels

Key financial regulators in the coming months are poised to require banks and publicly traded companies to detail the risks they face from climate change, a move environmentalists say is a first step to shifting funds away from high-carbon assets and activities most threatened by climate damages. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has already issued draft supervisory guidance to large banks – urging them to incorporate “physical” and “transition” climate risks into existing considerations while also...

Despite Aggressive Policies, California Not On Track For GHG, Air Goals

Despite California’s pioneering and aggressive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conventional air pollution, the state enters 2022 facing seemingly near-impossible odds of achieving its carbon-reduction targets and EPA’s legal mandates to attain criteria air pollution limits. “[W]hile the state has delivered on many fronts, the hard truth remains that we are no longer on track to meet our forthcoming climate goals, and even state leadership has expressed concern that we are off track,” notes F. Noel Perry, founder...

Despite Aggressive Policies, California Not On Track For GHG, Air Goals

Despite California’s pioneering and aggressive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conventional air pollution, the state enters 2022 facing seemingly near-impossible odds of achieving its carbon-reduction targets and EPA’s legal mandates to attain criteria air pollution limits. “[W]hile the state has delivered on many fronts, the hard truth remains that we are no longer on track to meet our forthcoming climate goals, and even state leadership has expressed concern that we are off track,” notes F. Noel Perry, founder...

Despite Extended Timeline, 2022 May Be ‘Pivotal’ For Next Auto GHG Rule

Multiple factors in the coming year – including California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) standards and the fate of proposed federal incentives for electric vehicles (EVs) – could have a major influence on EPA’s planned long-term vehicle emissions standards, observers say, even if a formal proposal might be over a year away. Plans for an aggressive multi-pollutant rule that takes effect in model year 2027 come as EPA completed its near-term auto greenhouse gas standards update in December, largely reversing the Trump-era...

Despite Extended Timeline, 2022 May Be ‘Pivotal’ For Next Auto GHG Rule

Multiple factors in the coming year – including California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) standards and the fate of proposed federal incentives for electric vehicles (EVs) – could have a major influence on EPA’s planned long-term vehicle emissions standards, observers say, even if a formal proposal might be over a year away. Plans for an aggressive multi-pollutant rule that takes effect in model year 2027 come as EPA completed its near-term auto greenhouse gas standards update in December, largely reversing the Trump-era...

Environmentalists Seek To Toughen RMP Rule As EPA Readies Latest Redo

As EPA readies a new Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule governing chemical facility safety for proposal by early fall, the third such effort in as many administrations, environmentalists who have long advocated for a strengthened rule say they are optimistic the agency will use the opportunity to address growing climate change risks and environmental justice (EJ) concerns. “We’re really hopeful that we’re going to get an updated stronger rule that, you know, moves the needle on some of these needed...

EPA Readies Key Risk Guides To Drive EJ Agenda But Faces Steep Hurdles

EPA is slated to issue landmark guidance in 2022 for assessing cumulative risks and disparate impacts, measures that will finally lay down markers for risk assessors and regulators to assess multiple exposures on vulnerable groups when issuing permits and making other decisions that have historically been limited to consideration of direct effects. The first of the two documents slated for release is Guidelines for Cumulative Risk Assessment Planning and Problem Formation, which will analyze cumulative risks from overlapping chemical exposures...

EPA Readies Key Risk Guides To Drive EJ Agenda But Faces Steep Hurdles

EPA is slated to issue landmark guidance in 2022 for assessing cumulative risks and disparate impacts, measures that will finally lay down markers for risk assessors and regulators to assess multiple exposures on vulnerable groups when issuing permits and making other decisions that have historically been limited to consideration of direct effects. The first of the two documents slated for release is Guidelines for Cumulative Risk Assessment Planning and Problem Formation, which will analyze cumulative risks from overlapping chemical exposures...

After Appellate Review, High Court May Again Weigh Climate Nuisance Suits

After the Supreme Court last year directed appellate courts to conduct more rigorous reviews of whether a raft of climate change nuisance cases should be heard in state or federal courts, observers are widely expecting the high court to again grapple with the litigation after the lower courts re-assess the crucial jurisdiction issues. While municipal and state governments pursuing the cases have pressed to keep them in state courts where they were originally filed, the oil sector has pushed hard...

After Appellate Review, High Court May Again Weigh Climate Nuisance Suits

After the Supreme Court last year directed appellate courts to conduct more rigorous reviews of whether a raft of climate change nuisance cases should be heard in state or federal courts, observers are widely expecting the high court to again grapple with the litigation after the lower courts re-assess the crucial jurisdiction issues. While municipal and state governments pursuing the cases have pressed to keep them in state courts where they were originally filed, the oil sector has pushed hard...

High Court Weighs Limiting EPA Powers In Swath Of Pending Litigation

The Supreme Court is poised to decide a slate of high-profile environmental and administrative law cases this year that could sharply limit EPA’s regulatory powers for years to come, including tests of federal authority over power plant emissions, the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and mandatory reviews for major projects like pipelines. The court is in the midst of its first full term with a 6-3 conservative majority following Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation just before the 2020...

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