Congress

Last week’s House oversight hearing on the Trump administration’s planned rollback of vehicle greenhouse gas and fuel economy rules is underscoring that supporters and detractors of the policy are locked in an ongoing substantive and political battle over the rule’s environmental, safety and economic effects.

Top EPA and California officials are engaged in an aggressive war of words over who is responsible for the breakdown of talks over vehicle fuel economy and greenhouse gas rules and the Trump administration’s plan to sharply roll them back, a dispute that one Democratic lawmaker says is doing little to restart the talks.

A bipartisan group of senators say they remain hopeful that legislative language requiring EPA to designate perfluorinated compounds as “hazardous substances” subject to liability under the Superfund law will eventually be included in the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill, which is slated for consideration later this week.

Drinking water utilities are declining to take a position on bipartisan Senate legislation addressing contamination from perfluorinated chemicals through a variety of environmental laws, though they are concerned that the measure, slated for markup June 19, could set an adverse precedent by preempting EPA’s statutory process for setting standards.