Federal Facilities

A federal court in Georgia has, for the first time, found the Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule violates several aspects of the water law and administrative law, but rather than vacating the rule, the court is ordering officials to continue their plans to revise the rule “in light of the serious defects identified in this Order while leaving this Court’s existing preliminary injunction in place.”

A recent conference seeking to develop a research strategy on per- and polyfluoroalkyls (PFAS), the broad class of chemicals drawing increasing public attention, sparked debate over a plan from Michael Dourson, a one-time Trump nominee to lead EPA’s toxics office, who renewed his push for a novel method for assessing the risks of PFOA, the most-studied of the chemicals.

Current and former government officials are strongly criticizing a draft guidance crafted by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) that instruct agencies to limit the scope of how they consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts when conducting National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.

Nearly two dozen Democratic attorneys general (AGs) are urging Congress to approve a series of plans to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in pending House and Senate defense bills, but the officials omitted calls for lawmakers to approve several contested measures, including plans to require EPA to craft water rules, highlighting the difficulty they face as they seek to resolve their differences.