Companies aiming to deploy autonomous vehicles (AVs) in major California cities are clashing with regional transportation agencies over a state public utilities commission proposal to regulate the nascent industry, primarily over whether the regional agencies can impose their own specific environmental, equity and other requirements.
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Daily News
November 19, 2020
California regulators and utilities are launching an additional rebate program providing up to $1,500 for the purchase of new battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), an effort that is being run through the state’s low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) and adds to existing state and federal rebates.
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An American Chemistry Council (ACC) group is opposing a proposal from a California committee that recommends making titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 np) a high priority for listing under the state’s Proposition 65 toxic warning law as a reproductive toxicant, citing recent studies that show limited risk and no widespread exposures.
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California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) is flagging potential problems with the state water board’s new regulatory program to clean up the drinking water supplies of about 1 million residents, suggesting lawmakers scrutinize if enough funding will be available and whether the program is adequately addressing impacts on Latinos.
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An expanding coalition of agriculture, forestry and environmental groups is floating dozens of steps to boost carbon storage and achieve greenhouse gas cuts, including for EPA to update lifecycle GHG analysis for fuels that qualify under its renewable fuels standard (RFS) to account for the industry’s efficiency gains.
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November 18, 2020
President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is touting the broad roles that newly appointed “public engagement” advisor, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), will play in addressing climate change, environmental justice and other issues even as his selection is drawing criticism from environmentalists who say he has been too close to polluting industries.
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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit questioned attorneys Nov. 18 about the role of a major Supreme Court ruling in shaping federal regulations on the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the potential harm to Colorado from a Trump administration CWA rule as they weighed whether to reverse a stay of the rule.
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EPA is setting an economy-wide goal of recycling 50 percent of waste material including plastic, paper and metal by 2030 -- an aggressive target that the agency will rely on voluntary programs and guidance to achieve given its lack of statutory power to regulate recycling or to require the use of recycled materials in manufacturing.
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Air regulators in the 12-state Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) area of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have found that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to plummeting levels of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ozone in the region, even as computer modeling shows that problems with high ozone levels will persist on the East Coast.
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California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is defending its listing of certain spray polyurethane foam (SPF) systems as priority products subject to evaluation under the state’s landmark Safer Consumer Products (SCP) green chemistry program in response to a first-time challenge by the chemical industry in state superior court.
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EPA has unveiled a major update to its motor vehicle emissions simulator (MOVES) tool that aims to improve estimates of autos’ air pollution used in rulemakings and the agency’s 2020 National Emissions Inventory (NEI), amid doubts over the accuracy of the latest NEI due to air quality changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
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A senior EPA official is acknowledging many environmentalists’ calls for the Biden administration to strengthen environmental justice (EJ) reviews, and is touting a New Jersey law as a model for how states and federal agencies can address chemicals’ cumulative risks disproportionately harming low-income and minority communities.
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November 17, 2020
Patrice Simms, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the EPA transition team, is an environmental lawyer with a long history of advocating for environmental justice (EJ) by pushing for stepped up enforcement of pollution rules in poor and minority communities, a sign of one approach the incoming administration may take to address EJ concerns.
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Environmentalists will press the incoming Biden administration to implement its campaign pledges to regulate and study risks of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) but they are also planning to urge officials to quickly adopt strict standards, including with the use of novel emergency power to quickly set drinking water limits.
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Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) says Democrats have three core actions they will pursue to speed legislation and regulation for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) including reintroducing a sweeping PFAS bill, urging the Biden administration to issue PFAS mitigation policies, and educating the public on the chemicals’ risks.
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Major oil companies are detailing their arguments for why the Supreme Court should overturn an appellate decision keeping Baltimore’s climate change nuisance case in state court rather than industry’s preferred venue of federal court -- a key procedural issue that could affect the fate of similar cases across the country.
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Drinking water utilities are making a series of recommendations to the incoming Biden administration, outlining their funding and policy priorities including an immediate need to address the adverse water impacts of COVID-19 and longer term concerns such as providing adequate research funding to determine new drinking water regulations.
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The incoming Biden administration will almost certainly make review of the Trump EPA’s waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule a priority, but legal precedent and the complexity involved in defining WOTUS make it uncertain as to whether any regulatory changes can occur quickly, a former EPA official and other experts say.
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November 16, 2020
The shift to the incoming Biden administration is reviving discussion about the possibility of “decoupling” EPA’s vehicle greenhouse gas rules from the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) fuel economy standards, a move some argue could open the way for EPA to more quickly spur the shift to electric vehicles (EVs).
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A federal district court for the second time is rejecting the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) climate change analysis for hundreds of oil and gas leases in Wyoming, blocking the leases and ordering BLM to redo its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review, possibly allowing a Biden administration to entirely cancel the leases.
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