The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has denied environmentalists and labor groups’ challenges to the scope of EPA’s framework rule for evaluating existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but the court also rejected EPA’s push to preclude “legacy uses” and associated disposal when assessing risks.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit will decide soon whether private plaintiffs met the deadline to sue over the 2015 Gold King spill, rather than after a multi-year trial process.
EPA and the Justice Department (DOJ) are continuing discussions on the use of supplemental environmental projects (SEPs), which are used to offset penalties in enforcement settlements, even as the agencies are at odds over DOJ policies seeking to limit -- and possibly bar -- their use.
Industry and environmental groups are clashing over the probable impacts of EPA’s proposal to end the “once in, always in” policy that forces industrial facilities to retain “major source” air toxics controls even if they reduce emissions below major source thresholds, a key issue that is likely to feature in expected litigation should EPA finalize the plan.
Groups challenging the Trump administration’s rule to preempt California’s auto emission rules are urging an automaker group seeking to intervene in support of the rule to formally disclose its members.
Appellate judges have dismissed on procedural grounds a biofuels group’s challenge to EPA’s policy allowing a major ramping up of renewable fuel standard (RFS) compliance waivers, but they are also signaling potential sympathy to the group’s ongoing attacks on the policy that the judges say “paint a troubling picture” of secretive agency law.
The threatened suit highlights growing concern about potential exposures from PFAS in biosolids from wastewater treatment plants as well as about policy changes that may impose liability on plant operators.
EPA, backed by California air regulators and industry groups, is defending its policy allowing states to use “interprecursor trading” to reduce emissions and help meet federal ozone standards, part of a broader defense of its contested rule for implementing the 2015 ozone standard that environmentalists claim is unlawfully weak.
A federal district court says “the equities weigh against” granting the agency’s request to remand part of its approval of Alabama’s impaired waters list, raising concerns about unnecessarily bifurcating the case.
Two environmental groups are threatening litigation against EPA to force overdue implementation of control technology guidelines (CTGs) for curbing ozone precursor emissions from oil and gas facilities -- seizing on Obama-era guidelines that remain on the books despite Trump officials’ efforts to repeal them.
