Environmentalists are continuing their five-year legal battle to get the U.S. Forest Service to regulate lead bullets in a national forest in Arizona, asking a federal appellate court to reverse a lower court's determination that it lacks jurisdiction over the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) case.

EPA has mobilized emergency response program personnel to coordinate with other government agencies to respond to damage from Hurricane Harvey across southeast Texas, including shoring up Superfund sites and assessing industrial facilities, but one industry source believes the larger burden for the agency will be managing toxic releases from smaller, unregulated facilities.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has suspended a host of state environmental rules due to Hurricane Harvey, though the indefinite suspension has intensified uncertainty over the future of the states' pre-existing regulatory exemptions for periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM), which the Obama EPA sought to remove but which the Trump administration is reconsidering.

Groups representing major industry sectors are urging a federal appeals court to scrap an Obama-era rule that allows EPA to opt against applying one federal appellate court's ruling on Clean Air Act (CAA) issues in another circuit, with industry warning that the rule creates a legal "wild, wild west" spurring major uncertainty for companies.

A Michigan road commission is asking a federal appeals court to broadly apply the test for "final agency action" to allow it to sue EPA over a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit objection that triggered federal authority over a formerly state-crafted permit, saying landmark Supreme Court cases show that the agency's "veto" is subject to legal challenges.

House lawmakers have approved several modifications to pending legislation funding EPA in fiscal year 2018, including language that would add $250 million to EPA's clean water loan fund, as well as numerous provisions that restrict the agency's current or potential pollution control authorities.

Environmentalists are urging a federal appeals court to uphold a district judge's finding that West Virginia has unlawfully abandoned any effort to craft Clean Water Act (CWA) cleanup plans for a host of waters across the state, including many with high conductivity from mining, saying the state will not advance those plans unless ordered to.

Facing calls for its elimination, the new leaders of EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) are pledging to shift the program's "paradigm," including working quickly to implement long-pending reforms, speeding release of its chemical assessments and making the program more relevant to partners inside and outside the agency, efforts that are winning strong support from agency science advisors.

Lawsuits challenging EPA's initial rules implementing the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) will test the discretion courts are willing to give the agency on interpreting the law's definition of a chemical's "uses" that will determine when a substance is subject to the rules and must undergo a risk assessment, sources say.

For the second time in less than two years, EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) has rejected draft advice from a special panel on how the agency should estimate carbon dioxide emissions from biomass power, deciding to revise language addressing the time frame over which emissions impacts are measured, an issue that has long stymied the effort.

California air officials' new proposal to tighten the state's greenhouse gas (GHG) rules for truck trailers if similar EPA standards are weakened or shelved is renewing debate over whether the state must seek a new Clean Air Act waiver from EPA to enforce any new rules, while underscoring confusion among truckers and trailer manufacturers.

JACKSON HOLE, WY -- State environmental regulators are seeking to create a process for streamlining approvals of new oil and gas emissions control technologies for use in complying with EPA and state rules, hoping broad regulatory acceptance will spur innovation and adoption of new technologies for measuring or limiting emissions in natural gas fields.

A federal judge has backed states and environmentalists' claim that the Trump administration cannot use the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to delay an Obama-era rule boosting royalty rates for fossil fuel extraction on federal land that has already taken effect, potentially boosting other suits targeting similar delays of methane emissions from some oil and gas sites and EPA limits on power plant effluent.