Latest News from Inside EPA

EPA is proposing to downgrade several states' designations for attaining the agency's 2010 sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), in many cases rejecting state suggestions to designate their areas as meeting the standard and instead given the areas a “nonattainment” or “unclassifiable” status.

The Supreme Court has delayed a scheduled Feb. 19 conference where justices would have decided whether to take up agriculture and home building industry groups' lawsuit over EPA's landmark multi-state Clean Water Act (CWA) cleanup plan for the Chesapeake Bay, with no new date yet announced.

EPA is granting the chemical sector's request to reconsider part of a final rule imposing new requirements on curbing air toxics from industrial waste and recovery operations, saying it will reassess a mandatory monitoring system for pressure relief devices (PRDs) on portable containers that industry uses to manage off-site materials.

EPA has reached a legal settlement with environmentalists that commits the agency to proposing within 18 months long-sought regulations to prevent and contain chemical spills from above-ground tanks at industrial facilities, such as the massive 2014 spill of a hazardous substance that contaminated drinking water in West Virginia.

EPA has released draft default inputs for its biotic ligand model -- used to estimate water quality criteria for levels of copper in water that will not harm aquatic species -- for public comment, which could accelerate the agency's delayed oversight of states' criteria for copper and potentially be used for water quality modeling for other metals.

Biodiesel producers in litigation over the agency's prospective approval of Argentinian biodiesel imports to qualify for the renewable fuel standard (RFS) says that EPA cannot claim its approval was an “informal adjudication” exempt from judicial review because such adjudications have previously applied to issues of “past conduct.”

Debate is heating up over the viability of a climate policy centered on a little-used Clean Air Act provision governing international air pollution, an option that has gained prominence as recent developments at the Supreme Court have increased the uncertainty surrounding EPA's greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants.

States are asking EPA to ensure that its pending rule revising its policy on when air pollution due to "exceptional events" such as wildfires can be discounted from emissions standards compliance measurements treats areas attaining the agency's national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) in the same manner as areas out of attainment.

Mining industry proponents and the state of Montana are bolstering legal arguments by a mining company that the United States should be held strictly liable as an owner under the Superfund law for contamination from mining operations on public lands in New Mexico, saying any other interpretation is contrary to congressional intent.

EPA is facing calls from drinking water industry groups, state regulators, and environmentalists to include the bacteria Legionella in its pending Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) monitoring rule, arguing that adding the bacteria to the rule could lead to better data on it and improved regulatory and other measures to address Legionella.

State officials are urging lawmakers preparing for conference talks to reconcile House and Senate Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bills to ensure the final legislation preserves states' authority to develop and implement their own chemical safety standards, one of the most contentious issues in the efforts to overhaul TSCA.

The environmental group Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is threatening EPA with a lawsuit over what it says is the agency's failure to meet a statutory deadline for revising the status of several areas that are not attaining the agency's 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 75 parts per billion (ppb).

EPA's proposed budget for fiscal year 2017 touts the agency's plans to expand its "E-Enterprise" initiative with states to streamline environmental policy workloads, but even though state environment agencies are welcoming the initiative some regulators are saying they will need more funding to achieve many of its goals.

EPA's objection to a Clean Air Act permit for a Texas power plant over a provision that relaxed the utility's mandate to comply with emissions limits during periods of startup, shutdown and maintenance (SSM), excluding malfunctions, sets a precedent that could spur a push to scrap similar provisions in other permits, environmentalists say.

Environmentalists are urging EPA to immediately suspend its conditional registration of flubendiamide after the agency found the insecticide poses ecological risks, and are arguing the pesticide producer's refusal to voluntarily withdraw it from the market shows EPA's process of conditionally registering pesticides is broken and should be suspended.

The Supreme Court opening created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia creates significant uncertainty for several climate, clean energy and environmental cases already on the high court's docket, as well as at least one pending case that the justices were slated to consider for review in the coming days.

House Democrats are querying EPA over its plans for reviewing the controversial herbicide Enlist Duo that is designed for use on genetically-modified (GM) crops after a federal court remanded the registration to the agency last month, urging EPA to weigh risks of the product to monarch butterflies and human health.

Propelled by contamination from a persistent perfluorinated chemical (PFC) found in drinking water in a New York community, EPA Region 2 officials are at the beginning stages of an effort to identify other locations with similar drinking water contamination, and will likely apply a non-enforceable health safety level more stringent than the agency’s existing short-term exposure advisory level of 400 parts per trillion (ppt), according to a regional official.

House Natural Resources Committee ranking member Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) is planning a new environmental justice bill that could attempt to codify legal protections for equity communities, in response to the Flint, MI, drinking water crisis where critics allege state and federal regulators failed to protect low-income and minority residents.

EPA is reiterating its attacks on the National Biodiesel Board's (NBB) suit challenging the agency's approval for Argentinian biodiesel imports to have access to the U.S. market under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), claiming NBB lacks legal standing to sue and that several aspects of their lawsuit are being pursued years too late.