EPN In Action January – February 2019

Bob Sussman, EPN member, former EPA Deputy Administrator and Senior Policy Counsel to Administrator, is quoted in this article on concerns about the current EPA’s modifications to the way it evaluates and regulates chemicals under The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Bonnie Bellow, EPN member and former EPA Director, Public Affairs Division, Region 2, is quoted in this article on suspended federal cleanups at Superfund sites around the nation and forced cancellations of public hearings due to the partial government shutdown.

Mark Hague, EPN Board Member and former EPA Regional Administrator and Deputy Regional Administrator in Region 7, is quoted in this article about the two days of hearings held by EPA and the Army in Kansas City on the proposed new definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS).

Betsy Southerland, EPN member and former EPA Director, Office of Science & Technology in the Office of Water, is quoted in this E&E article about environmental experts who say closing the gap between current federal waterway protections and the administration’s proposed Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule will be all but impossible given state laws limiting environmental regulations or imposing budgetary restrictions.

EPN member Judith Enck, former EPA Regional Administrator for Region 2, is quoted in this article about the Defense Department’s admission that it allowed a firefighting foam to slip into at least 55 drinking water systems at military bases around the globe, exposing tens of thousands of Americans to PFAS chemicals.

Betsy Southerland, EPN member and former EPA Director, Office of Science & Technology in the Office of Water, is quoted in this article on the EPA’s proposed PFAS management plan, which did not provided a maximum contaminant level, a legal limit allowed in drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act, for the chemicals. Betsy was also quoted in similar articles in The Intelligencer, Earther and The Guardian.

EPN’s PFAS comments are referenced in this article on EPA’s reports on the health hazards of chemicals GenX and perfluorobutane sulfonic acid (PFBS), which many groups say came too late, weren’t done correctly, and fail to address the chemicals’ presence in drinking water across the country.

EPN member Joel Mintz, former EPA Enforcement and Supervisory Attorney, wrote this op-ed about the dismal decline in EPA enforcement under the Trump Administration.

EPN member Dan Reich, former EPA Assistant Regional Counsel, Region 9, wrote this op-ed  about using tariffs to address the real and present danger of climate change.

Betsy Southerland, EPN member and former EPA Director, Office of Science & Technology in the Office of Water, co-wrote an op-ed about the administration’s long list of regulatory rollbacks that put public health in jeopardy.

EPN member Margo Oge, former EPA Director, Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, and Director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, is quoted in this article about negotiations between California and the White House ending as the Trump Administration prepares to move forward with their rollback on vehicle fuel-efficiency standards.

EPN members Dave Coursen, former EPA Office of General Counsel, and Cynthia Giles, former EPA Assistant Administrator, Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, are quoted in this article about an 80% drop in some penalties levied against polluters, signaling that the EPA has become a less aggressive watchdog:. The piece also ran in Press of Atlantic City, among other outlets.

Janet McCabe, EPN member and Advisor and former EPA Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, is quoted in this article, which discusses how limiting the positives of a rule by discounting its “co-benefits,” as the EPA proposed last month with its mercury emissions regulation, allows agencies to tweak their regulations in ways that are friendlier to those covered by them.