A key waste industry official is warning environmentalists that their recent lawsuit trying to force a hard legal deadline for EPA to finalize its long-stalled Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) coal ash disposal rule will instead further delay resolution of the issue by tying it up in litigation for up to another two years.

EPA appears to be backing down on its mandate that states in their plans for implementing the agency's sulfur dioxide (SO2) national ambient air standards (NAAQS) show through modeling that facilities within areas deemed “unclassifiable” for attaining the NAAQS are sufficiently regulated to achieve the standard, sources say.

Oil and gas industry groups appear split over whether EPA should indefinitely delay its imminent drilling sector air rules due next week, with some companies backing the rules' release but seeking a lengthy phase-in period while independent drillers want the agency to shelve the rules due to data quality concerns about EPA's emissions estimates.

New research by the Health Effects Institute (HEI) suggests diesel exhaust from newer engines with more stringent emissions controls could have markedly different carcinogenic properties than exhaust from older, higher-emitting engines, findings that could prompt a need to assign the two types of exhaust with different risk rankings.

EPA's new method for assessing the physical characteristics of streams and their potential impacts on downstream waterbodies could bolster the agency's scientific basis for its pending guide on the Clean Water Act's (CWA) scope by helping resolve the core legal question of which streams should be subject to the CWA, observers say.

EPA's final guidance on the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) appears to make minor changes from previous versions to narrow the law's reach over ditches and other "dry" areas to federal regulations, according to a copy of the final guide undergoing White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) review and obtained by Inside EPA.

An EPA-state workgroup looking at ways to simplify and accelerate the process for crafting state implementation plans (SIPs) for meeting federal air quality standards will use EPA's upcoming revision to its particulate matter (PM) national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) as a test case for trying innovative new SIP approaches.

The Army Corps of Engineers is defending its policy of ceasing cleanup work at Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) when third parties are identified as sharing liability, arguing that to do otherwise would tie up limited program funds in litigation while waiting to recoup money spent on cleanup actions from other responsible parties.

A Pentagon official says a proposed 15 percent cut to the Defense Department's (DOD) fiscal year 2013 cleanup budget for Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS), a program long criticized for having a backlog of cleanups, will force DOD to reprioritize work at the sites, though sources say funds remaining from past years will limit slowdowns.

EPA’s decision to scrap its interim remediation goals for dioxin-contaminated sites is creating major uncertainty over how the agency will determine cleanup standards for the sites, sources say, because EPA says it will make decisions using its new dioxin risk assessment -- even though the agency has yet to release a key portion of that study.

Water utility groups and environmentalists are praising an agreement signed by EPA and the City of Philadelphia aimed at controlling the city’s combined sewer overflow (CSO) violations through green infrastructure projects as a model for other agreements the agency is pursuing under its integrated permitting and planning policy (IP3).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is poised to hear oral arguments April 13 in a lawsuit filed by industry, states and others over EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program for power plants, which will test the extent to which EPA resolved legal flaws in an earlier, remanded trading rule.

A major settlement between oil refiner Marathon Petroleum and EPA over alleged Clean Air Act violations that resulted in "innovative" and "state-of-the-art" controls on flaring emissions could set a precedent for future refinery emissions rules and also hint at stepped-up agency enforcement in the sector, environmentalists say.

Farm industry groups are appealing a North Carolina state board's finding that an administrative judge must reconsider his ruling banning control of ammonia emissions under a Clean Water Act discharge permit in a landmark case that could test the law's reach over harmful air emissions that deposit on waterbodies.

Environmentalists suing the government to force a California tile drainage system to meet Clean Water Act (CWA) permit requirements are urging a federal district court to back their claim that the systems cannot qualify for a narrow statutory permit exemption, warning that the drainage systems are currently polluting waters unabated.

Activists are urging EPA to preemptively veto a pending Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for a proposed massive hard rock mine in Alaska by warning it could devastate nearby salmon fisheries, despite a recent landmark district court ruling that EPA overreached its CWA power in vetoing an already-issued permit for another mining project.

Industry, activists and others are urging EPA to use its pending guidance on the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to resolve key policy issues, including impacts on logging roads that may now be required to seek discharge permits and EPA’s standard for “aggregating,” or combining, marginal waters when making jurisdictional determinations

New studies by EPA and other researchers are highlighting long-standing fears that blending ethanol in gasoline may exacerbate contamination normally associated with fuel spills while also increasing the presence of explosive methane, concerns that are increasing after EPA approved the first application to produce a 15-percent ethanol fuel blend (E15).

Ethanol industry officials -- as part of a state-level campaign to speed the sale of a 15-percent ethanol (E15) fuel blend -- are advising fuel retailers that legislation providing liability protections is unlikely to pass Congress this year but that EPA's E15 labeling rules and existing state liability laws will provide the basic protections they seek.

EPA is facing calls from a bipartisan group of senators and the iron and steel industry to expand its definition of clean-burning gas units subject to weaker controls in the agency’s pending final revised boiler air toxics rule, with advocates of a broader category saying it will cut emissions while allowing for more efficient operations.