The United States Environmental Protection Agency last week announced a large number of actions that it is planning to go back to the regulations on the climate, air and water, many of which were established during the previous administration and some that precede it.
On March 12, the statements, the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, characterized the change of approach as an effort to rearrange with the “main” agency that he described as “activists” goals. “The administration of Biden-Harris combined legally questionable regulations with an unpredictable but punitive application aimed at closing American energy and manufacturing and promoting the so-called” environmental justice, “he said.
Several groups in the industry and construction quickly got up to praise the ads, in order to take more than 30 separate actions planned by the administration, but Abigail Dillen, President of Earthjustice, said in a March 14 press that “Zeldin and the Trump administration leave the EPA mission.
Rules that the agency has stated that reconsider plans are the requirements for cleaning coal ashes; Effluent limitation guidelines for wastewater; The toxics standard of Mercury Air; National quality of the ambient air quality; the rule of interstate atmospheric pollution; And, perhaps the most significant, EPA’s politics stating that greenhouse gas emissions represent a threat to public health. The “Danger” was established in 2009 to align with the United States Supreme Court in 2007 Massachusetts v. Epa Sentence that gives the agency authority to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants. Politics is the basis of most current EPA rules related to climate change.
Similar to other federal agencies, EPA also announced that it would dissolve departments that regulate diversity, equity and inclusion and environmental justice.
Guidance on Wotus
While Zeldin announced numerous planned actions, only one note – a memory of engineers of EPA EPA EPA Army Engineers, which clarified the definition of United States waters, often shortened in Wotus – was actually in force.
The orientation indicates the field staff that requires federal permits only for the waters with a “continuous surface hydrological connection” – or direct buttress – to larger “navigable” water bodies. This is consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s decision by 2023 Sackett v. EpaAnd it erases a continuous confusion over the wetlands and the waters that require federal protection under the Law of Clean Waters, said Zeldin.
The note also states that EPA and body will hold six listening sessions and a 30 -day public comment period for more public contributions.
Larry Liebesman, the main advisor to the Environmental Consultant Dawson & Associates, said that the note would make it easier for project developers to obtain permits to begin construction. Historically, “determining the jurisdiction has been very difficult. It has been expensive. It has caused time delays. There may be very different interpretations from different parts of the country,” said Liebeseman, a former United States Justice Department lawyer. “The idea is to provide relief, probably more clarity,” he said, although the end result is “you probably have many wetlands that will not be considered federally regulated and that you are more likely regulated at the state and local levels.”
Varied reaction
Industry groups described EPA’s ads as signs that the administration is adopting a “common sense” approach to regulation.
Mike Sommers, President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement: “The voters sent a clear message in support of the affordable, reliable and safe north -American energy, and the Trump administration responds to the call advancing” to many priorities in the group.
Zeldin’s statements indicated a welcome that resisted the regulations that the American Iron and Steel Institute considers “onerous”, said that Kevin Dempsey, president and CEO, including the rule of air pollution between the states and particles in the environmental environmental environment, which added “would result in excessive costs and less opportunities for producers for producers. of steel “.
According to Dempsey, “the last four years have seen the EPA impose costs and sometimes technically inaccessible the emission limits to the steel.” He said that the group, “in the name of American steel makers,” is “pleased” that the current management of the EPA reviews “many of these shameless and duplicative rules,” including various air emissions rules that affect the impact “of the United States.
But environmental groups expressed Chagrin and said that the administration is on a shy legal field and hopes to win in various legal challenges they plan to present.
Dillen de Earthjustice added that the power and transport sectors of recent years have shown that emissions can be regulated and controlled without causing damage to companies’ lines.
Biden’s administration sent a “very strong sign” that these sectors would be regulated aggressively by virtue of federal legislation and that federal hiring would continue to emphasize a transition to clean energy projects. As a result, “the states and energy regulators were doing their plans, requiring public services to make their plans.”
EPA changes are “a signal change and this will have a really deep impact,” he said.
