Even as the Trump EPA faces a mixed record defending its deregulatory agenda, EPA General Counsel Matt Leopold says he wants to ensure that rule changes implementing the administration's rollbacks are "durable and defensible" so that its policies will endure, arguing the policies will save billions while also reducing pollution.

California and environmental groups are asking a federal appeals court to restore EPA's former "once in, always in" (OIAI) policy of regulating industrial facilities as "major" air toxics sources even when they cut emissions below major source thresholds, arguing the Trump administration's decision to scrap the policy is unlawful and will boost pollution.

Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler says the agency within 30 days will unveil its proposal for a new "clean and straightforward" Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction standard that follows the water law and confusing Supreme Court precedent, and which is expected to be narrower in scope than the Obama-era rule it will replace.

Appellate judges at oral argument in environmentalists' suit over the Obama EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent guidelines for power plants appeared to doubt the Trump administration's defense of the rule for leaving in place 36-year-old standards for "leachates" -- water that has absorbed, or leached, pollutants from solid waste.

Wetlands mitigation banking experts are raising concerns about plans by the Army Corps to ease rules for how compensatory mitigation credits are created, saying that some options would harm the environment while questioning how much of a role EPA might play in the program if the Corps changes a 2008 rule developed jointly with the agency.

Faced with a congressional deadline under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), EPA has released its plan for how it will prioritize chemicals for possible assessment and regulation, though limited stakeholder consensus appears to have led the agency to pursue a split approach for short- and long-term efforts.

EPA has appointed David Dunlap, a chemical engineer with Koch Industries, as the deputy chief of its research office, a move that will provide the office with political leadership at the deputy level, which does not require Senate confirmation, while allowing the agency to avoid another bruising battle over an industry nominee for the office.

Supporters and opponents of EPA's newly proposed power sector greenhouse gas rule are sparring over how any new measure should interact with market trends toward lower-carbon generation, with environmentalists arguing EPA should strengthen its rule to bolster such trends while industry is praising the plan for largely relying on such shifts.

EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) is poised to finalize recommendations that EPA account for biomass emissions and regrowth within a specific policy context, rather than over a long time horizon where the two are equal, as recommended by an SAB panel that deliberated over the issue for seven years.

The Supreme Court is asking the Justice Department (DOJ) to weigh in on an industry petition seeking to overturn a landmark ruling from Montana's high court allowing state damages claims by local landowners to proceed despite the Superfund law's bar on pre-enforcement review of EPA cleanup decisions, which industry says would create "chaos" and gives third parties a significant new role in selecting remedies.

Senate environment committee Republicans are suggesting they will try in the next Congress to move legislation that largely adopts a controversial EPA proposal to bar the agency in rulemaking from relying on scientific data that is not publicly available, with a GOP staffer saying lawmakers' preference is to enact such policies through statute.