Congress

The independent research firm Rhodium Group is floating a “clean products standard” (CPS) for industrial manufacturers, arguing the market-based policy might be politically more favorable than a carbon tax and is needed because the sector will soon surpass transportation and power generation as the country’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.

The California air board is advancing a sweeping set of rules requiring manufacturers of refrigeration and air conditioning (A/C) systems to dramatically reduce the use of high global warming-potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), but it is also relaxing several key deadlines in response to industry opposition.

The Trump EPA is making several legal and political arguments in an effort to shield its newly finalized rule rewriting Clean Air Act cost-benefit review procedures from reversal by the incoming Biden administration or Capitol Hill, including that the rule is procedural and thus exempt from the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

House and Senate lawmakers have removed language from a conferenced version of water resources legislation that would have authorized billions of dollars in new funding for EPA water infrastructure programs, opting to limit the bill to Army Corps of Engineers provisions and prompting wastewater utilities to call the action a “disservice” to utilities.