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In its February 2019 Action Plan for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the EPA said it planned to consider listing some PFAS under the federal Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) (Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and Section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA)). The Agency has now taken the […]
On its way to becoming a final rule, an odd thing happened to an EPA proposal that would withdraw requirements promulgated by the Obama administration—major players in the affected sector itself have come out against the proposal and requested that the Agency preserve the provisions it wants to eliminate.
A bill mandating a federal workplace violence prevention standard for healthcare and social services passed the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill, the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 1309), would require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to establish an interim standard within 1 year, a proposed […]
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to issue a pair of proposals in the new year to update its forklift and walking-working surfaces rules, according to the Department of Labor’s new regulatory agenda. The department issued its first agenda since Eugene Scalia became Secretary of Labor.
Facilities subject to Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act—better known as the Risk Management Program (RMP)—won a significant deregulatory victory with the EPA’s issuance of its RMP Reconsideration Rule. The Reconsideration Rule rescinds major portions of the RMP Amendments Rule the Obama EPA issued in January 2017.
The EPA’s commitment to regulatory reform through deregulation is evident in the Agency’s latest Regulatory Agenda. The 145 entries on the Agency’s Fall 2019 Rule List include 56 actions that are expected to be deregulatory; these actions follow the 47 deregulatory amendments the EPA says it has already finalized under President Donald Trump.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its reconsideration of Risk Management Program provisions that were amended in 2017. EPA opted to rescind some of the amended provisions for various reasons and retain or modify other provisions. According to EPA, the latest revisions to the rule “better address potential security risks, reduce unnecessary and ineffective […]
Sixty days after its publication in the Federal Register, a final EPA rule will formally add hazardous waste aerosol cans to the federal Universal Waste program.
California’s Department of Public Health must notify the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) when a worker’s blood lead level tests at or above 20 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dL) under a new state law.
The Trump administration is relying heavily on its environmental authority to try to reverse the declining role of coal in energy generation. Under both the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Agency has the power to regulate how much the coal-fired electricity sector must do and how much […]