The power to enforce a rule intended to slash air pollution associated with warehouses could one day rest in the hands of citizens who are willing to go to federal court. Several Inland members of Congress recently signed a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking it to add the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s rule to a larger set of air quality regulations known as a State Implementation Plan. If that happens, citizens could sue in federal court to enforce the rule, provided they notify various government agencies and those agencies aren’t pursuing enforcement on their own, according to an air district spokesperson.
A group of 11 Republican-led states and energy industry groups have challenged an EPA rule that bolsters state and tribal veto power over pipelines and other major infrastructure projects that might pollute rivers and streams. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Louisiana on Monday, Louisiana, West Virginia, Wyoming, and others argued that EPA's September rule revising the Clean Water Act's Section 401 certification process to let states and Native American tribes block projects over a wider range of expected impacts to water resources exceeded the agency's authority under the law and asked the court to vacate it.
EPA on Saturday issued a final rule aimed at reducing methane emissions and other air pollutants generated by the oil and gas industry and promoting use of methane detection technologies. The rule targets emissions from existing oil and gas wells nationwide, rather than focusing only on new wells, as previous EPA regulations have done. It also regulates smaller wells requiring the investigation and plugging of methane leaks. The rule also will phase in a requirement for energy companies to eliminate routine flaring or burning of natural gas that is produced by new oil wells. The new methane rule will help ensure that the United States meets a goal set by more than 100 nations to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, according to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.
Over the next two decades, Los Angeles County will collect billions more gallons of water from local sources, especially storm and reclaimed water, shifting from its reliance on other water supplies as the effects of climate change make such efforts less reliable and more expensive. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors this Tuesday adopted the county’s first water plan, which outlines how America’s largest county must stop importing 60% of its water and pivot to sourcing 80% of its water locally by 2045.
Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency officials last Friday voted to remain in a settlement of litigation with 3M and Dupont, a case that is progressing on a yearslong settlement timeline expected to conclude at the end of the decade. The federal lawsuit, filed in 2020, has more than 100 plaintiffs including both water agencies and individuals from across the country. The upshot for local water users is that by being “first in line” in terms of the settlements, the agency is expected to recoup in the neighborhood of $25 million to help pay for the removal of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a family of substances called “forever chemicals” by EPA because they don’t break down in nature or in humans’ bodies. The downside is the settlement, some of which puts funding in an escrow account expected to be fully dispersed through a timeline ending Dec. 31, 2030, only covers a fraction of the cost to the agency of removing the contaminants. And there are no guarantees the businesses will survive what could be many settlements to come.
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