An EPA scientist is downplaying prospects that the agency will be able to use more children's health studies when setting national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), as its children's health advisors are urging, due to political opposition from industry groups and their supporters on Capitol Hill, as well as a limited number of studies of children.

EPA is reducing planned staff furloughs required under the budget “sequestration” for fiscal year 2013 from 13 days to 10 as a result of spending cuts to non-payroll items such as grants, acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe told Senate appropriators at a recent hearing, which could help address EPA union official's concerns on the furlough.

Acting EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe at a Senate appropriations hearing touted cost savings under EPA's fiscal year 2014 budget proposal including more than $50 million in savings by reducing or eliminating agency programs, though some of the agency's proposed budget cuts and policy goals drew criticism from appropriators.

States are outlining competing priorities at meetings with EPA on policies for curbing interstate transport of air pollution, with eastern states seeking strict controls on industrial plants in upwind states while officials in other states are pushing options that could reduce their burdens under a future agency air transport plan.

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit filed in 1998 over an EPA rule exempting certain fuels derived from hazardous waste from restrictions on burning wastes as fuel, along with litigation over a similar 2008 agency rule on burning synthesis gas, after environmentalist litigants exhausted administrative options to fight the rules.

EPA is fighting multiple legal attacks by the power sector, states and environmentalists in final briefing in litigation over the agency's utility maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule for existing utilities, broadly rejecting competing claims that the rule is either weaker or stricter than the Clean Air Act requires.

Environmentalists are warning EPA that a draft self-certification guidance aimed at ensuring polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are not being sent overseas when U.S. ships are scrapped fails to provide any agency oversight or enforcement mechanisms, while a domestic ship recycler is urging EPA not to expand the guidance to apply to domestic scrapping processes as existing methods already work well.

A federal appeals court has backed EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) authority to block disposal sites associated with Army Corps of Engineers' permits “whenever” it finds harm, upholding EPA's veto of a West Virginia coal mine after the permit was issued and opening the door to officials taking the unprecedented step of blocking a planned Alaska mine before a permit has been sought.

EPA says it is leaning toward regulating coal ash as a “solid waste” rather than as a “hazardous waste” subject to strict waste management rules, a move that is winning praise from industry groups concerned about the likely cost of stringent requirements and the uncertainty created by the agency's lengthy rulemaking process.

Environmentalists are urging EPA and federal wildlife officials to look to techniques from the agency's human health risk assessment program when assessing uncertainty in risks to endangered species from pesticides, arguing that a soon-to-be released report from a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel may stop short of addressing the issue.

A federal district judge has rejected EPA's effort to dismiss a landmark lawsuit over whether air releases from livestock farms are subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) permitting, a win for industry intervenors who seek to bar EPA from requiring such permits in the future -- though the order also raises the possibility that the case will be decided on narrow grounds, avoiding the air-release issue.

A federal judge has dismissed on procedural grounds environmentalists' “mega” suit that sought to force EPA to assess the effects of hundreds of pesticide registrations on scores of listed species, setting back advocates' efforts to force the agency to retroactively consult with federal wildlife services on the chemicals' effects and to mitigate them.

EPA has sent for White House review a draft of its next multi-sector general permit (MSGP) for stormwater, which governs timber, chemicals, mining and other industries in states where EPA is the permitting authority and serves as a model for similar permits in other states -- raising industry hopes that the new draft will refine and clarify language that industry says leaves it open to citizen enforcement suits.

Efforts by municipalities to create a new low-interest EPA loan program to fund large water infrastructure projects are running into headwinds in the Senate, where states are seeking to strip domestic procurement, labor and environmental review requirements and win a bigger role in the program than what cities have proposed.

EPA's Office of Inspector General (IG) is initiating a study to uncover why EPA has a backlog of sites that have been proposed to be added to Superfund's National Priorities List (NPL), the list of the worst contaminated sites in the country, but have never moved forward.

The fatal explosion of a Texas fertilizer plant is unlikely to boost environmentalists' calls for EPA to require safer chemicals at industrial plants because there are few alternatives to the substances involved in the explosion, although advocates say the incident highlights a need for additional safety practices, including enhanced reporting of, and limits on, chemicals stored on site, and buffer zones between facilities and residential areas.

Environmentalists are broadening efforts to win stronger standards under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for protecting aquatic life from ocean acidification, urging EPA in a recent petition to craft first-time criteria for key acidification indicators and guidance for states on identifying factors that prevent adverse changes in seawater chemistry.

After failing in 2012 to advance broad legislation to speed environmental reviews and permits for development projects, congressional Republicans are now taking a narrower approach in sector-specific bills, drawing on approaches in the 2012 highway law that are now being adopted in upcoming water resources legislation and other measures.

A new industry coalition is urging EPA to reconsider its recently announced focus on enforcing Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requirements for fractions or sliced-off portions of chemicals, which industry says EPA has exempted from regulation because the agency considered them to be "existing" chemicals rather than a "new" product.

EPA's proposal to approve several southeastern states' air quality plans for meeting the agency's fine particulate matter (PM2.5) standards is reviving a fight between industry and environmentalists over whether the states' reliance on cap-and-trade emissions programs as a strategy for reducing haze is permissible under the Clean Air Act.