Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
Four of the wealthiest and most influential tech companies in the world have jointly submitted an amicus brief supporting the EPA in the Agency’s defense in June 2016 of its Clean Power Plan (CPP) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Consistent with President Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan, the EPA is using its Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) to propose restrictions on the end uses of certain hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), approve new alternatives to substances with high global warming potential (GWP), and change the status of other substances already on the SNAP list.
As part of their Clean Air Act (CAA) responsibilities to implement the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), state and local air agencies must monitor for the presence of NAAQS pollutants (formally, criteria air pollutants) in the ambient air and report the monitored data to the EPA. The relevant regulations at 40 CFR Part 58 […]
Taking enforcement action against violating small community water systems (SCWSs) can be a complete waste of time, which makes it clear that other approaches are needed to bring the thousands of such systems into compliance with their Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) obligations.
Several EPA offices involved in reviewing toxic chemicals for commercial use have been moving to approve alternatives to using live animals—called in vivo testing—as part of their regulatory testing requirements. In the latest development, the Agency’s Office of Pesticide Program (OPP) has issued a document describing a process for evaluating and implementing alternative approaches to […]
A spill or release of a chemical just occurred at your facility. What do you do? Does it need to be reported? What information needs to be reported, to whom, and how soon?
The 629-page proposal the EPA/National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published (July 13, 2015, Federal Register (FR)) to set Phase II GHG emissions and fuel-efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty engines and vehicles contained a few short paragraphs from the EPA that caused a major uproar in the auto racing community.
The Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) has assembled an illuminating summary of state reactions to the U.S. Supreme Court’s stay of the Clean Power Plan (CPP). The stay recognizes the strength of judicial challenges to the rule and allows those challenges to proceed through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and […]
Spring is here. As the ground thaws and the rainy spring season begins, owners of underground storage tanks (USTs) must take certain precautions to prevent tank systems from emerging from belowground and floating away.
Sierra Club de Puerto Rico and other environmental groups could not persuade a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that their challenge to a Clean Air Act (CAA) rule the EPA promulgated in 1980 was timely. According to the groups, that rule provided an illegal definition of any air pollutant […]