Waste

From brownfields to Superfund sites, and from coal waste rules to handling hazardous waste, this section tracks EPA's efforts to tackle a wide-ranging waste agenda.

Topic Subtitle
From brownfields to Superfund sites, and from coal waste rules to handling hazardous waste, this section tracks EPA's efforts to tackle a wide-ranging waste agenda.

Nokia, OxyChem Assail Passaic Superfund Settlement In Third Circuit

Two major companies are urging an appellate court to overturn a settlement for cleanup of New Jersey’s Passaic River, one of the nation’s most contaminated Superfund sites, faulting the liability allocation prepared by an EPA contractor -- though they are doing so for opposite reasons. In a July 28 brief, the Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem), the largest contributor to pollution at the Diamond Alkali Superfund site, argues that the settlement, which allows dozens of parties with smaller liability to cash...

Air Force, New Mexico Escalate Dispute Over Cannon AFB PFAS Cleanup

New Mexico’s top environmental regulator says the Air Force appears to be escalating its dispute with the state over PFAS contamination at an air base, sidelining state inspectors and seeking changes in court venue as state officials again seek to oversee the cleanup through litigation bolstered by a new state law regulating PFAS-containing firefighting foam. The Air Force appears to be testing that new law, in what New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Secretary James Kenney says are actions inconsistent with...

Environmentalists Warn North Dakota CCR Program Approval Is Unlawful

Environmentalists are warning that EPA’s precedent-setting plan to approve North Dakota’s application to operate its own coal ash permitting program is unlawful, charging that the state’s program violates waste and other laws by failing to be as stringent as the federal rules require and fails to ensure prior approval that a facility will achieve compliance. A coalition of environmental groups submitted July 15 comments urging EPA not to finalize its proposed approval of North Dakota’s coal combustion residual (CCR) program,...

CBD Presses 11th Circuit To Vacate EPA’s Phosphogypsum Approval

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is urging the 11th Circuit to vacate EPA’s formal approval of a small-scale pilot project allowing a Florida company to use radioactive phosphogypsum (PG) in road construction, charging that the agency’s decision unlawfully interprets provisions of the Clean Air Act’s section 112(r). CBD filed a July 11 opening brief in the suit CBD v. EPA, et al. , where it is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to vacate the...

EPA Enforces CSB Accidental Release Rule In First-Time Settlement

EPA and the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) are issuing a first-time enforcement action under the 2020 Accidental Release Reporting Rule, resolving alleged violations of the rule and the Clean Air Act in a settlement with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). EPA on July 28 announced a settlement with PG&E that would require the company to pay a civil penalty of $45,273 for failing to report a 2023 accidental release of natural gas from a PG&E...

Georgia PFAS Case Tests Prioritization Of Competing CERCLA, CWA Claims

A public utility in Georgia is fighting with environmentalists over whether the Superfund law or the Clean Water Act (CWA) should govern the cleanup of land and waterways contaminated with PFAS-laden wastewater, as they contest the issue in separate claims pending in federal court. The dispute could be an early test of whether Superfund cost recovery claims for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) cleanups -- now allowed under EPA’s 2024 Superfund rule designating two heavily studied PFAS as “hazardous substances”...

EPA watchdog warns of brownfields staff drop-off in FY 2027

EPA’s inspector general is warning that a large spike in brownfields grants funded by the Biden-era infrastructure law will outlast the more-modest increase in EPA staff that administer and provide oversight for the projects, potentially degrading cleanup outcomes after the end of fiscal year 2026. The July 23 report from EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), “Audit of the EPA’s Brownfields Program Management and Funding Allocations,” also identified inaccuracies in an internal EPA database that tracks already-awarded grants. The...

States, Industry Split Over Upcoming DOI Superfund NRDAR Rule

Stakeholders are split on the Interior Department’s (DOI) upcoming Superfund natural resources damages assessment and restoration (NRDAR) rule, with industry cheering the updates meant to provide more flexibility and encourage settlements, while states say the changes do not go far enough in streamlining the rarely used Type A assessments. DOI submitted the rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on July 18. At the July 22 meeting of the Ad-Hoc Industry Natural Resource Management Group in...

House Committee Seeks EPA Report On PFAS Enforcement Discretion Policy

House appropriators are pressing EPA to report on its implementation of the Biden-era enforcement discretion policy aimed at quelling liability concerns of “passive receivers” of PFAS contamination triggered by the agency’s 2024 Superfund PFAS rule, a measure that could inform policymakers weighing steps to address the rule or provide additional liability relief. The House Appropriations Committee included the measure, along with other provisions on per- and polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS), in its report attached to the fiscal year 2026 spending bill...

Trump Orders EPA To Ease Permitting To Speed AI Data Center Approvals

President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) to speed the approval and permitting for a broad range of data centers and energy facilities needed for artificial intelligence (AI) is directing EPA to ease clean air and water requirements for “qualifying projects,” as part of the administration’s broader strategy for winning a global “race” to develop AI. The July 23 EO , issued with two other orders for promoting AI development, directs EPA to expedite “permitting on Federal and non-Federal lands by...

Groups Detail CEQA Claims In Suit Over DTSC-Boeing Santa Susana Cleanup

Community and environmental groups are detailing opening arguments in their challenge to the California toxics department’s agreement with Boeing Co. on a cleanup plan for the contaminated former Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) site, including ways it violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). “This closed-door deal greatly benefits Boeing and makes a mockery of the CEQA process,” argued Jeff Ruch, senior counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), in a July 14 press release announcing the groups’ filing...

House GOP Urges EPA To Prioritize Development Of CCR Permit Program

House Republican appropriators are urging EPA to prioritize development of a federal coal combustion residuals (CCR) permitting program, a rule that many stakeholders have sought to set standards for the growing number of states expected to seek authority to implement their own programs. The recommendations, contained in report language attached to EPA’s fiscal year 2026 spending bill, also call for EPA to prioritize development of measures that encourage beneficial reuse of ash waste. The House Appropriations Committee voted to advance...

Senate Panel Seeks To Repeal DOD PFAS Incineration Ban, Lift Purchase Bar

A key Senate panel has approved measures in annual defense policy legislation that would definitively repeal a temporary moratorium on Defense Department (DOD) incineration of PFAS, require DOD to update its PFAS destruction guidance and lift a ban on DOD procurement of certain products containing the two most studied PFAS, among other provisions. In addition, the fiscal year 2026 defense authorization bill would push DOD to conduct expedited interim response actions of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination at military...

DOI floats final rule streamlining Superfund NRD

The Interior Department (DOI) has sent its final rule updating Superfund natural resource damage assessment and restoration (NRDAR) rules to the White House for review, a final step before issuing any measure to overhaul the rarely used “Type A” streamlined assessments to provide more flexibility and encourage settlements. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), DOI submitted the rule for regulatory review July 18. Such reviews usually take about 90 days, though they can be faster or slower,...

EPA Overhaul To Consolidate OLEM, Combine Personnel And Budget Work

The second phase of EPA’s reorganization will combine the Office of Land and Emergency Management’s (OLEM’s) Superfund office with the emergency management office, while consolidating agency personnel and budget offices to “realize efficiencies.” The restructuring moves, announced July 17 , would also move administrative law judges (ALJs) who adjudicate some enforcement cases directly into Administrator Lee Zeldin’s office. The announcement comes after the Supreme Court greenlighted the Trump administration’s plans for restructuring and mass firings. The reorganization will also see...

House Defense Policy Bill Calls On DOD To Accelerate PFAS Cleanups

The House Armed Services Committee has approved defense authorization legislation that includes several provisions addressing PFAS, including an amendment that would require the Defense Department (DOD) to accelerate PFAS cleanups as well as a measure requiring DOD to provide alternative water to owners of private wells with PFAS exceedances. The committee adopted these and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) amendments during the panel’s July 15 markup of H.R. 3838, the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The...

Groups sue over EPA’s controversial Oak Ridge cleanup plan

Six environmental groups are suing EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) over the agency’s controversial and precedential Trump-era decision, later upheld by the Biden administration, easing Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements for DOE’s Superfund cleanup at the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) in Tennessee. The groups filed a July 12 complaint to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charging that EPA and DOE’s cleanup activities at the site violate a 1991 federal facility agreement (FFA) between the...

EPA Gives More Time For CCR Rule Compliance Amid Pending Rollbacks

EPA is extending compliance deadlines and offering utilities additional relief from various elements of Biden-era coal combustion residuals (CCR) regulations, with observers seeing the moves as an attempt to buy time for Trump administration officials to develop substantive rollbacks of those policies. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on July 17 signed a prepublication version of a direct final rule, as well as a companion proposal, that would extend compliance deadlines for facilities covered by the Biden-era “legacy” CCR rule. The rule...

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