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On March 9, 2020, EPA published its final “risk and technology review” for the standards it adopted in 2004 to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutant (HAP) from natural gas-fired combustion turbines. Like most other such reviews, EPA confirmed that the risks presented by HAP emissions from the source category are acceptable with an ample margin of safety. EPA also concluded that there are no new cost-effective controls for reducing those emissions.

On March 3, 2020, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its most recent proposed revisions to the federal Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) rule. The proposal, which EPA has coined “Part B” to its “Holistic Approach to Closure,” is a follow-up to the Part A proposal, which EPA published in November 2019. Part of a flurry of CCR-related activity, the Part B proposal comes just days after EPA issued its proposed federal CCR permit program.

As we previously reported, the purpose of EPA’s Part A proposal was to align the Agency’s regulations with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ August 2018 decision in USWAG v. EPA, 901 F.3d 414 (D.C. Circuit 2018). To that end, Part A proposed to (1) classify clay-lined surface impoundments as unlined, and (2) require all unlined surface impoundments to close.

Last week, EPA fulfilled a promise to reverse the expansion of its refrigerant management program during the Obama Administration. That expansion, which was finalized in 2016 and became effective in 2019, EPA extended the regulations for ozone depleting substances (ODS) to non-ODS “substitute” refrigerants, with the intent of reducing emissions of substitutes that consist of greenhouse gases (GHGs), including some with very high global warming potentials. Last week’s final rule returns the refrigerant management program to its original focus, at least with respect to appliance leak repair requirements, although some regulatory requirements for non-ODS substitute refrigerants will remain in place.

On February 5, 2020, EPA issued a final rule revising the petition provisions of the Title V permitting program. Under the CAA Title V program, permitting authorities must submit proposed Title V permits to the EPA administrator for a 45-day review before issuing the final permit. If the administrator has no objections within this period, any person may petition the administrator within 60 days thereafter to ask EPA to object to the permit.

New federal reporting requirements for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) went into effect on January 1, 2020. The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2020 (NDAA), signed into law on December 20, 2019, required EPA to add certain PFAS to the federal Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list of reportable chemicals.

The NDAA identified fourteen specific PFAS chemicals for addition to the TRI list, and directed EPA to add other substances that met two criteria: (1) they were subject to a significant new use rule (SNUR) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) on or before December 20, 2019, and (2) they were identified as active in commerce on the TSCA Inventory that was published in February 2019. Among the new additions are some of the best-known and most-studied substances, including PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonate), and GenX chemicals (including hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid).

On January 27, EPA published a preliminary list of manufacturers that are potentially subject to a fee obligation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”). This is a follow-up notice to EPA’s designation of 20 additional substances as High Priority Substances in December, for which the agency will now go through a risk evaluation, including:

Plaintiffs across the country have filed suit seeking relief for their exposure to per– and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”), a group of man-made chemicals that the plaintiffs hope to link to a variety of adverse health effects, including cancer. While the health effects attributable to these chemicals are under study by state and federal regulators, decisionmakers have been slow to implement rules and regulations that provide those who have been exposed to these chemicals with a clear path for recovery. While regulators grapple with these emerging contaminants, courts are weighing in on whether those injured by exposure to PFAS are entitled to relief under the existing regulatory landscape.

Under the Obama Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a rule on January 13, 2017 amending parts of the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) Risk Management Plan (RMP) program, which regulates facilities that use hazardous substances.  Among other things, the Obama Administration’s 2017 RMP Rule implemented new requirements related to technology and alternatives analyses, third-party audits, disclosure requirements, and incident investigations.  Similarly to other areas of environmental law, the Trump Administration expressed its intention to repeal these requirements shortly after entering office.  After issuing a May 30, 2018 proposed rule and considering nearly 77,360 submitted comments, the EPA recently made good on its intention by releasing the pre-publication version of final RMP Reconsideration Rule that, among other things, repeals the Obama Administration regulations.

The final rule incorporates most of the substantive provisions in the proposed rule.  In addition to repealing much of the 2017 RMP Rule, the RMP Reconsideration Rule modifies the requirements related to local emergency coordination and compliance dates for some provisions.  The Reconsideration Rule will become immediately effective upon its publication in the Federal Register, which should occur soon.  Parties are also expected to challenge the RMP Reconsideration Rule in court, potentially resulting in the delay of the rule’s effective date or its reversal.  One potential challenger is a contingent of fourteen state attorney generals that submitted negative comments on the proposed rule.  More recently, the states submitted another comment listing chemical incidents that have occurred since the proposed rule, which they argue further evidences the need to keep the 2017 RMP Rule.

On November 15, EPA posted its pre-publication version of the Final Rule re-classifying aerosol cans as “universal waste” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which finalizes EPA’s March 16, 2018 proposal (83 Fed. Reg. 11,654).  As discussed in our prior blog post regarding the proposal, many aerosol cans have historically been classified as hazardous waste because of their ignitability, and thus often are subject to stringent regulations related to handling, transportation, and disposal.

Universal waste is a sub-category of RCRA regulated hazardous waste that allows certain widely generated products, such as batteries, certain pesticides, and lamps, to qualify for less stringent regulation than the traditional hazardous waste regime.  The Final Rule is intended by EPA to ease regulatory burdens on retail stores and others that discard hazardous waste aerosol cans by providing an optional pathway for streamlined waste management treatment; promote the collection and recycling of these cans; and encourage the development of municipal and commercial programs to reduce the quantity of aerosol cans going to municipal solid waste landfills or combustors.