Daily News

EPA is renewing its bid to dismiss a suit seeking to require TSCA reporting rules for asbestos uses, arguing in part that environmentalists’ claims that such rules are needed given science advisors’ criticism that the agency lacked adequate data for its draft asbestos evaluation was outside the record and that EPA acted within its discretion.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is advancing a rule for autonomous vehicles (AVs) that would set an overarching goal to reduce greenhouse gas and other air emissions, though the commission is rejecting calls for “sub-goals” for electric vehicles (EVs), reduced vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and environmental justice.

If Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the Nov. 3 election, attorneys are widely expecting EPA to ramp up enforcement efforts with major initiatives under bedrock environmental laws, rather than the Trump administration’s approach of focusing on compliance assistance and deference to states.

Private attorneys who serve as enforcers of California’s Proposition 65 chemical labeling law are at odds with an array of industry groups over a state plan to provide first-time exceptions for the food chemical acrylamide, which would exempt businesses from providing cancer warnings if they can show exposures from cooked and heated foods fall below proposed maximum concentration levels.

A panel of three appellate judges at Oct. 27 oral appeared ready to force EPA to write a long-awaited update on its lead-based paint definition used in setting hazard levels for the substances, but also signaled disagreements on whether the agency can consider additional factors such as economic impacts when issuing lead hazard policies.

A federal district court judge is granting EPA’s request to stay litigation over whether the agency can terminate a consent decree that required it to set a drinking water standard for the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate until an appeals court rules on whether EPA had the authority to decide no national standard is necessary.

Progressive groups are calling for policymakers to create a new environmental justice (EJ) mapping tool that is more robust than EPA’s current EJSCREEN, a measure supporters say would complement calls from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, for agencies to assess their policies’ effects on disadvantaged communities.