Category: Regulatory Developments

2016 Reporting Season: What is on the horizon?

2016 has the potential to be a very busy reporting year. In addition to the usual annual reports, such as TRI and Tier II, this year also brings the hazardous waste biennial report and TSCA’s chemical data report, which only comes around every 4 years. Reporting deadlines will come up faster than you think. It […]

O&G Proposal Worries Industry

The Department of Interior’s (DOI) most recent and perhaps most consequential responses to the catastrophic April 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico are proposed regulations for blowout preventer (BOP) systems and well control, which were published in the April 17, 2015, Federal Register.

Requirements Established for Specialty Coatings

Following its Clean Air Act (CAA) residual risk and technology review (RTR) of its 1995 National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) covering aerospace manufacturing and rework facilities, the EPA is amending NESHAP by establishing requirements for specialty coating operations, which were not previously subject to NESHAP.

EPA’s eDisclosure Portal has Launched!

Effective December 9, 2015, the EPA launched a new tool that allows regulated entities to electronically report self-discovered violations. The tool, called eDisclosure, will function under the Agency’s two self-policing incentive policies—the 2000 Incentives for Self-Policing Discovery, Disclosure, Correction and Prevention of Violations and the 2000 Small Business Compliance Policy.

Changes Issued to Simplify Exceptional Events Rule

EPA’s 2007 Exceptional Events Rule (EER) was intended to give state and local agencies an avenue to remove data about certain types of monitored air pollution from area attainment/nonattainment designations under the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). However, the EER required states to support their applications for data exclusion with analyses that were so […]

House Passes Joint Resolution to Block CPP

The U.S. House welcomed President Obama’s return from the Paris climate change conference by passing a joint resolution to block the EPA from implementing its Clean Power Plan (CPP) to regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants.

Compliance with the Final Hazmat Rule is January 1, 2016 – Or is It?

By Elizabeth Dickinson, JD The “Hazardous Materials: Harmonization with International Standards (RRR)” final rule was issued on January 8, 2015. Voluntary compliance with the new rule began January 1, 2015, with mandatory compliance delayed until January 1, 2016, unless otherwise specified (as it is for numerous provisions).

Final Amendments for Boiler MACT

The EPA’s January 2013 amendments to its maximum achievable control technology standards for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers and process heaters (Boiler MACT) was a highly consequential action that prompted both industry and environmental groups to submit 13 petitions asking the Agency to reconsider certain provisions. In a final rule, the Agency has responded to […]

Widely Used Pesticide… Canceled!

Following through on a court ruling, the EPA has issued a final cancellation order for sulfoxaflor, a widely used pesticide active ingredient manufactured by Dow AgroSciences and registered by the EPA in May 2013.

Fall 2015 Regulatory Agenda: OSHA Prioritizes Silica, Recordkeeping Updates

OSHA’s recently released fall 2015 regulatory agenda outlines the status of the agency’s currently pending prerules, proposed rules, and final rules. While most of the items on the fall 2015 list are holdovers from previous regulatory agendas, the Department of Labor (DOL) identified two major rulemaking efforts, both in the final rule stage, as top […]