OUTLOOK

2023 Deadlines Loom Over EPA’s Pending TSCA Chemical Evaluations

EPA faces statutory deadlines for 20 TSCA evaluations of existing chemicals this year that so far have seen little public movement since EPA began them in 2019, adding to officials’ warnings that they lack resources to meet those targets and raising questions over whether the agency can finalize them before the end of President Joe Biden’s current term. The toxics office prioritized its current batch of 20 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) chemical evaluations in December 2019, triggering the law’s...

As EPA Focuses On Service Lines, Some Urge More Priority On Lead Paint

Backed by billions of dollars in infrastructure money, EPA is stepping up its efforts to ensure local governments replace lead-based drinking water lines, though some public health officials say the agency should also prioritize measures to address lead paint, which poses greater risk than water contamination and is also the exposure source for most children. Ruth Ann Norton, a member of EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC), told agency officials recently that lead-based paint in housing is “as important...

EPA Readies Raft Of Rules To Cut Ozone As Officials Weigh Stricter NAAQS

EPA is ramping up efforts to sharply reduce ozone emissions across much of the country, with a series of planned or just-finalized rules, although whether this is sufficient to meet existing federal air quality limits, much less potentially tougher federal standards now under consideration, is open to question. Possibly as soon as March 2023, EPA plans to finalize its revised version of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which as proposed will expand the emissions trading program to cover new...

EPA Faces Crunch On Next Round Of GHG Standards For Cars, Trucks

EPA is facing a crunch this year to release multiple proposals targeting greenhouse gases and other emissions from cars and trucks after a year of significant external developments that have helped set the baseline for future regulatory action, including congressional enactment of new or revised tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs). The rulemakings loom even as litigation is ongoing over EPA’s current GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, as well as the agency’s decision last March to reinstate preemption waivers for...

Pending Legal Fights Preview Battles Over EPA’s Upcoming Coal Ash Rules

Environmental and power sector groups are pursuing a series of citizen suit and other legal challenges that are already providing a venue for the groups’ expected advocacy on a suite of coal combustion residuals (CCR) policies that EPA is slated to issue in 2023 as officials work to update the agency’s 2015 rule. For example, environmentalists are suing Alabama Power over the adequacy of one of its facility’s plans to cap coal ash in place, though the company is seeking...

Facing Resistance, EPA Treads Carefully In Addressing Cumulative Impacts

Facing stiff resistance from states and industry groups, EPA is expected to proceed cautiously as it works to advance its high-profile effort to account for cumulative impacts in permitting for facilities located in overburdened communities, a key part of the Biden administration’s environmental justice (EJ) agenda. A case in point is a high-profile guidance being developed by EPA’s new Office of Environmental Justice & External Civil Rights (OEJECR), likely in consultation with the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ),...

Amid Signs Of Gridlock, GOP House To Boost Scrutiny Of Biden Efforts

Republicans’ takeover of the House is expected to pose new oversight challenges for Biden administration officials as they push to implement last year’s climate legislation and issue several high-profile EPA climate rules, while it is also dampening prospects for new environmental initiatives. But the GOP’s narrow House majority, as well as Democrats’ continued control of the Senate, has observers expecting that Republicans would fail in wholesale attacks on last year’s climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and...

EPA Readies Landmark TSCA Rules Governing Asbestos, Methylene Chloride

EPA is entering a landmark year for TSCA regulation as it prepares to finalize a proposed ban on uses of chrysotile asbestos, the first rule based on a risk evaluation under the reformed law, and readies a proposal for the solvent methylene chloride that could set a long-term precedent on how the agency will approach risk management for other existing chemicals. Although EPA has crafted a handful of rules for existing chemicals since Congress overhauled the Toxic Substances Control Act...

Agencies’ Continued IRA Implementation Sparks Clean Energy Disputes

EPA, the Treasury Department, the Energy Department (DOE) and others are continuing to disperse the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) mammoth clean energy funding, reigniting various fights over the best approach to transitioning to a clean energy economy. The agencies’ IRA implementation includes releasing dozens of guidance documents and taking other steps to deploy a collection of clean energy tax incentives and grant programs, even as they continue to implement the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law’s (BIL) energy- and climate-related provisions. The...

EPA Readies Suite Of New PFAS Rules In 2023 Amid Heated Advocacy

EPA is gearing up to issue a suite of new final and proposed rules, including under its Superfund, water, waste and toxics programs, in 2023 -- measures that are already driving heated advocacy as environmentalists and industry groups battle over the reach and stringency of the upcoming regulations. Many, if not all, of the pending per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) regulations will be quickly challenged once finalized while the proposals will spark strong debates. Legal challenges to EPA’s PFAS rules...

Certainty On WOTUS Remains Elusive As Supreme Court Ruling Awaits

The Supreme Court’s closely watched ruling later this year in Sackett v. EPA could fail to provide long-sought certainty over the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA), especially if the court’s decision is narrowly focused on when adjacent wetlands are subject to the law and does not address other jurisdictional issues, such as small streams. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers recently finalized a new definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) that covers a wide...

With Legislation Stalled, Permitting Reform Focus Turns To EPA, CEQ

With Congress unlikely to quickly approve permit reforms in 2023, EPA and other agencies are expected to advance key rule changes that will seek to advance the Biden administration’s clean energy priorities but they will face a host of potential hurdles, including concerns from environmental justice (EJ) advocates, likely opposition from congressional Republicans and potential legal limits from the Supreme Court. But observers say that the Biden administration and lawmakers may eventually reach a legislative deal, especially given the need...

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...

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