Toxics

A proposed EPA settlement requiring a Missouri-based agricultural products company to perform third-party audits to prevent facility accidents undermines the Trump administration's roll back of equivalent Obama-era policies in the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) rule, environmentalists say.

White House officials reviewing EPA's draft proposal gutting the Obama-era update to the agency's facility accident prevention program sought to bolster the basis for the agency's rollback, backing industry arguments that the update was unnecessary and that rolling it back would provide added benefits by improving facility safety.

House science committee Republicans were forced to drop their planned markup of legislation redirecting the work of EPA's influential but controversial Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program after the House Energy and Commerce Committee won jurisdiction over the just-introduced measure, raising doubts about the legislation's future.

Petrochemical and other industry representatives are reiterating their support for EPA's proposed rule barring the use of science where the underlying data and models are not publicly available but they are also calling for clarifications that would expand the rule's scope, limit EPA's ability to grant waivers, better protect trade secrets and more.