On April 15, 2019, EPA issued its long-awaited Interpretative Statement addressing the Clean Water Act’s applicability to releases of pollutants from point sources into groundwater that subsequently migrate to jurisdictional surface waters. The question this interpretation addresses stems from the 2018 federal circuit split previously discussed here. On February 19, 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in one of the cases that contributed to the split, County of Maui v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund. The United States filed its amicus brief in that case, urging the highest court to review County of Maui, but not a similar ruling from the Fourth Circuit. As the question was being reviewed by the federal courts, EPA requested public comment on this issue and received over 50,000 comments. EPA is addressing some of these comments in the Interpretative Statement.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to expand the applicability of the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for stationary combustion turbines. EPA originally established the combustion turbine (CT) NESHAP in 2004. On April 12, EPA officially proposed the long overdue residual risk and technology review (RTR), which is required within eight years of the final standards.

While, based on its RTR analysis, EPA proposes to leave the current CT standards in place, the proposal would expand the reach of those standards to two additional subcategories of units by lifting a stay that has been in effect since the standards were originally finalized. Lifting that 15-year-old stay would impact lean pre-mix and diffusion flame natural-gas-fired CTs. The proposal would also eliminate the startup, shutdown, and malfunction exemption for all units subject to the rule. Although all existing lean pre-mix and diffusion-flame gas-fired units would become subject to the NESHAP, only units constructed or reconstructed after January 14, 2003 must comply with substantive emission and operating limitations.

On March 8, 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Army, and Army Corps of Engineers petitioned the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 4th and 9th Circuits to voluntarily dismiss their appeals of the Suspension rule. This is yet another development in the litigation surrounding the 2015 Waters of the United States Rule (WOTUS). Our previous blog posts on this topic can be accessed here.

On March 13, 2019, a three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted EPA’s motion for voluntary remand without vacatur of the Agency’s recent revisions to the Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) rule, commonly referred to as “Phase One, Part One.”  The D.C. Circuit’s Order comes in response to…

At a public hearing on March 6, 2019, the California State Water Resources Control Board announced a “Phased Investigation Plan” for perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).  The Investigation Plan represents a coordinated effort by the Water Board to identify PFAS in discharges and drinking water sources across California.  This new initiative leverages the Board’s enforcement and permitting powers to order testing and will proceed in three phases.  Under each phase, the Water Board will issue orders to the covered facilities requiring at least one round of testing of their discharge to identify whether PFAS are present.

On February 7, 2019, EPA published its proposed revised Supplemental Cost Finding for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and risk and technology review. The proposal re-evaluates the cost of complying with the MATS rule for coal- and oil-fired power plants, and the associated benefits of regulating hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from these sources. Based on its revised analysis, EPA has determined that it is not “appropriate and necessary” to regulate HAP emissions from power plants under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act.

Today, February 22, 2019, EPA published the final “Management Standards for Hazardous Waste Pharmaceuticals and Amendment to the P075 Listing for Nicotine” rule in the Federal Register. The final rule becomes effective at the federal level on August 21, 2019. As we previously reported, EPA released a prepublication…

Today the Supreme Court issued its order list from its February 15 Conference during which it considered whether to grant certiorari in two pending petitions regarding discharges of pollutants to groundwater that is hydrologically connected to surface water. The Court granted certiorari in County of Maui, HI v. Hawaii Wildlife…

EPA recently released its FY 2018 Enforcement Results highlighting the environmental benefits reaped from its enforcement and compliance assurance actions over the past year.  This year’s report shows a marked shift away from previous years’ reports, which focused on the number of cases initiated and resolved and the amount of penalties imposed.  Overall enforcement numbers declined over previous years, with a continuing decline in inspections from 10,612 in FY 2018 compared to 11,941 in FY 2017, fewer cases initiated and concluded, and few penalties imposed from $69.4 million in FY 2018 compared to $1.67 billion in FY 2017.  To contextualize the penalty reduction, EPA notes that annual penalty totals are often skewed by one or two large cases in a particular year, such as the Volkswagen mobile source defeat device enforcement with $1.45 billion in penalties in FY 2017 and the $5.7 billion in penalties assessed in FY 2016 for the BP oil spill.  Despite other reductions, the report shows an increase in enforcement of environmental crimes for FY 2018.

On February 14, 2019, EPA announced the release of its Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Action Plan (Action Plan) in an unprecedented series of simultaneous press conferences across all 10 of its Regions.  The Action Plan brings together and organizes regulatory, enforcement, and scientific efforts across nearly all of the Agency’s statutory programs, including the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), and the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA).  Some of the components of the Action Plan are entirely new, while others represent the continuation or revival of prior initiatives.  Below we summarize the highlights of the 60+ page Plan.