Audit, Compliance and Risk Blog

How long can a new President’s policy changes take? I’ve been writing about President Trump’s attempts to roll back environmental requirements, and cautioning that some changes can be fast (like immediate repeal of his predecessor’s executive orders regarding climate change) while others will require multi-year rulemakings to revise finalized regulations (like EPA’s review of the greenhouse gas emission limits under the Clean Air Act, both extremes appear in a recent Executive Order I discussed here). On April 11 the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a reminder that regulatory changes can take a long time. The Court revoked several environmental reporting exemptions adopted by EPA in the last month of George W. Bush’s administration (December 2008, effective on the day of President Obama’s inauguration January 20, 2009) – culminating a year-long rulemaking and setting of 8 years of administrative and judicial appeals. So this regulation-reducing effort took 9 years to fail.

In November, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published substantial revisions to its hazardous waste regulations, which it entitles the “Hazardous Waste Generator Improvements Rule (HWGIR).” These include more than 60 changes to specific requirements, plus dozens of technical clarifications and corrections. Some requirements apply to nearly all generators, while others are targeted at one or more of three volume-based tiers. EPA has scheduled the revisions to take effect on May 30, 2017 – but it’s possible that some provisions will be reviewed and revised by the incoming Trump Administration before that date.

The US Green Building Council (USGBC), founded in 1993, is a consensus-based nonprofit organization with more than 12,000 national members representing the entire building industry. USGBC plays an important role in providing leadership and integration for the building industry in driving sustainable building.

To improve the efficiency of RCRA Corrective Action, in 2014, EPA Regions 3 and 7 began a pilot to implement RCRA Corrective Action using Lean process analysis with the goal of clarifying goals and expectations early in the process. The Lean process is a collection of principles and methods that focus on the systematic identification and elimination of non-value-added activity involved in producing a product or delivering a service to customers. Within the RCRA Corrective Action program, the Lean process was used to remove various redundant steps and frontload goals and expectations through a corrective action framework (CAF), resulting in significant time savings.

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer provides the international framework for protecting the earth’s stratospheric ozone layer, by identifying and minimizing emissions of ozone depleting substances (ODSs). The original Montreal Protocol was initialed in September 1987 (I summarized it here). It is widely considered an effective example of international cooperation (I blogged about the healing of the “ozone hole” here), in contrast with ongoing struggles to reach binding international agreements to address climate change. In fact, during 2016 efforts are underway to build on the Montreal Protocol’s strengths by amending it to address additional chemicals that may harm ozone and contribute to climate change.

EPA has just issued final rules to limit exposure to formaldehyde emissions from plywood and other laminated and composite wood products. The Formaldehyde Emission Standards for Composite Wood Products Act of 2010 (“the Act”, which is codified as Title VI of the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”)) required EPA to develop these rules. The Act responded to evidence of dangerous emissions from substandard construction products, publicized particularly by health hazards in temporary trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters. The Act established standards based on California rules, and directed EPA to issue nationwide rules by January 1, 2013 to enforce these standards. EPA missed its deadline, but has just announced rules that will become effective after publication in the Federal Register (probably in August 2016).

We often see pictures in the media of places where the environment is being abused. During the Rio Olympics, we’ve seen many visual images of garbage-laden rivers and dirty beaches and it’s easy to think that if that were in our country, it would be under control, but a recent Harvard study took a closer look at water quality at home and found that it comes up short in many U.S. states.

This post continues my discussion of the “Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,” which was adopted in June to revise the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). In the last post I summarized changes made to accelerate testing of chemical substances that are already in use in the U.S., and for which evidence developed since their introduction suggests they may pose an “unreasonable risk” to health or the environment. This “grandfathering” of never-evaluated and potentially hazardous chemicals has been seen as a major weakness. The 2016 Amendments also strengthen the process of evaluation for new chemicals offered for distribution in the U.S. This note addresses changes to these new chemical reviews.

Late in the 1970s, measurements in the stratosphere revealed that levels of ozone were falling – the headline summary of this trend was the annual appearance of a thinned-out “ozone hole” over the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Health and environmental and human health scientists worried because stratospheric ozone is an important absorber of potentially damaging ultraviolet radiation (bad for penguins under the ozone hole, and eventually bad for humans on the rest of the planet). Further studies concluded that the culprits were halocarbon chemicals used as refrigerants, solvents, propellants, and foam-blowing agents. Dubbed “ozone depleting substances (ODSs)”, these chemicals (including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), freons and halons) are relatively non-reactive when released on the surface, so they persist in the atmosphere long enough to drift up to the stratosphere where incoming solar radiation eventually powers their reaction with ozone.

On May 17, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed order registering the pesticide sulfoxaflor, using authority under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). This proposal is the latest action in a long-running and controversial review of that potential pesticide, and continues to consider how toxic this active ingredient is to bees, and therefore how and if it can be used. Coming after a recent court decision vacating EPA’s previous attempt to register sulfoxaflor, the answer is not clear (I provided a basic discussion of FIFRA registration here).