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Three Options to Deal With Border Pollution Presented at USMCA Meeting

/in , , /by /Eagle and Timesby Alessandra Selgi-Harrigan

In 2020 the U.S. government through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) committed $300 million in The United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade agreement to identify infrastructure solutions to mitigate the transboundary pollution. Infrastructure solutions for transboundary flows from the Tijuana River have been studied for the past year. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has been tasked with creating solutions, originally proposed 10 possible projects. In time the projects have been narrowed down to three, which were presented during the last virtual public information meeting on Aug. 6.

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EPA Puts Additional Delay On Trump Lead and Copper in Drinking Water Rule

/in , /by /The Hillby Rachel Frazin

The Environmental Protection Agency has put another delay on a Trump-era update to a rule governing lead and copper in drinking water, according to a new federal register notice.

The notice says that the rule, which was previously expected to take effect on Thursday, will now take effect on December 16. It also pushed back the date at which it requires compliance by one month until October 16, 2024.

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Biden Budget Seeks Boost for EPA Core Programs and Research

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Stephen Lee, Dean Scott, Jennifer Hijazi, Bobby Magill, Ellen M. Gilmer

President Joe Biden’s fiscal 2022 budget lays out a 24.1% boost to the EPA’s core rule-writing and enforcement programs and a 7.5% increase in staffing to get the work done, according to a detailed blueprint released on Friday.

The plan envisions a $3.4 billion request to implement the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other statutes, up from $2.8 billion in the current budget. That funding would cover a huge range of activities, such as creating ways to attain ambient air quality standards and overseeing states’ management of hazardous waste.

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‘It’s a Toxic Blend’: Where the Kids are Warned Not to Swallow the Bath Water

/in , , /by /The Guardianby Vivian Ho

An invisible line splits the rural road of Avenue 416 in California’s Tulare county, at the point where the nut trees stretch east toward the towering Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. On one side of the line, residents have clean water. On the other side, they do not. On the other side lies East Orosi, an unincorporated community of about 700 where children grow up learning to never open their eyes or mouths while they shower.

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Biden Swings Waters Pendulum With Final Resolution Still Elusive

/in , /by /Bloomberg Law by Bobby Magill

The Biden administration is swinging the pendulum of repeated changes to water regulation back to expanding after those regulatory powers contracted under President Donald Trump.

But the swing isn’t likely to be permanent, legal scholars say.

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Incoming Interior Secretary Faces Many Issues in Arizona and Beyond, From Water Rights to Climate

/in , /by /Tucson.comby Tony Davis

If U.S. Rep. Debra Haaland is confirmed as interior secretary, the Native American from New Mexico could make a huge difference to Arizona and the West when her background and outlook are translated into policy. Experts in Native American affairs and Democratic Party congressional leaders including Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Tucson and Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico offer predictions for how Haaland’s tenure could affect federal lands and waters: Water rights.

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Federal Lead-Pipe Rule Overhauled for First Time in Decades

/in , /by /The Washington Postby Sarah Kaplan and Brady Dennis

For the first time in three decades, the federal government on Tuesday overhauled a rule aimed at reducing lead in drinking water across the country — a long-standing scourge made worse by the nation’s weathered and crumbling infrastructure.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s lead and copper rule, widely criticized as complicated, poorly enforced and too weak to protect the health of many Americans, has not been revised since 1991, when George H.W. Bush was president.

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EPA Guidance May Exempt Some Water Polluters from Supreme Court Permit Mandate

/in , /by /The Hillby Rachel Frazin

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a draft guidance that interprets a Supreme Court decision in a way that may exempt some facilities from needing permits to pollute groundwater. In April, the court decided that a permit is required for both direct discharges of pollutants into federally-regulated rivers and oceans as well as their “functional equivalent” in groundwater that flows into regulated waters.

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Biden’s EPA Expected to Pass Limits on Some ‘Forever Chemicals’

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Pat Rizzuto

The EPA under a future Biden administration is expected to quickly move to set regulations on “forever chemicals” in water and other areas, but not to restrict the entire group of thousands of the substances, attorneys said in recent interviews.

The Environmental Protection Agency is already expected to set national drinking water limits for two of these chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, said Cynthia AM Stroman, a partner in King & Spalding LLP’s Washington, D.C. office.

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Opinion: The Devastating Implications From Rollbacks of the Clean Water Act

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Ashley Overhouse

Here in California, rivers are a cornerstone of our landscapes. On a recent rafting trip down Northern California’s Yuba River, I was lucky to see eagles flying overhead and salmon spawning beneath our boat. Experiences like this remind me to appreciate the protections that keep our water clean and safe, and help habitats thrive.

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