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The EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently issued its Fiscal Year 2023 Oversight Plan, which details the projects the OIG intends to conduct through September 2023 and identifies top management challenges faced by both the EPA and the OIG. “Oversight is at the core of the EPA OIG’s mission,” said Inspector General Sean O’Donnell […]
The EPA recently released the “Cumulative Impacts Addendum to EPA Legal Tools to Advance Environmental Justice (EJ Legal Tools).” It provides a collection of examples of the Agency’s legal authorities to identify and address cumulative impacts through a range of actions, including permitting, regulations, and grants, in order to consider the lived experience of communities […]
Improperly handling highly hazardous chemicals can result in chemical accidents: unexpected releases of explosive, flammable, reactive, or toxic gases and liquids. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) process safety management (PSM) standard sets out industry requirements for preventing or minimizing catastrophic releases of chemicals, and it applies across many industries. Preventing chemical accidents involves […]
The EPA has proposed a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) that would prevent companies from starting or resuming the manufacture, processing, or use of an estimated 300 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that have not been made or used for many years without a complete EPA review and risk determination. In the past, these chemicals, […]
On February 17, 2023, the EPA reaffirmed the scientific, economic, and legal underpinnings of the 2012 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for power plants, which required significant reductions of mercury, acid gases, and other harmful pollutants. This reinstates an Obama-era legal finding that affirmed the science behind clean air standards, and it reverses a […]
On February 22, the Department of Labor (DOL) published a list of the department’s economically significant rulemakings, including six at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) (88 Fed. Reg. 11252). The six OSHA rulemakings include two in the prerule stage—process safety management (PSM) and prevention of major chemical accidents and prevention of workplace violence […]
On December 31, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a cumulative impacts bill (S.8830/A.2103D) into law for the state, which amends the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) to require the consideration of both long- and short-term effects of any proposed action “on disadvantaged communities, including whether the action may cause or increase a […]
On episode 145 of EHS On Tap, Kevin Shoemaker, EHS Solution Engineer for EHS Hero, talks about using technology to improve EHS compliance.
The EPA recently released Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15 (Plan 15), which lays out how the Agency will work to protect the nation’s waterways by following science and the Clean Water Act (CWA) to develop technology-based pollution limits and studies on wastewater discharges from industrial sources. The plan focuses on evaluating the extent and nature […]
On February 1, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) requested additional input on regulatory changes necessary for the introduction of highly and fully automated commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) on the nation’s roadways (88 Fed. Reg. 6691). The supplemental advance notice of proposed rulemaking (SANPRM) revisits issues beyond those covered in advance notices of proposed […]