An advisory panel consisting of current EPA members found major setbacks on proposed regulatory rollbacks during Trump’s administration.
The administration keeps a keen eye on proposed regulatory rollbacks
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now undergoing scrutiny by a special board over several proposed regulatory rollbacks that have been ignored and disregarded.
The agency in charge of the investigation is the Science Advisory Board (SAB), where some of its members are current EPA members handpicked by the administration.
The SAB exists primarily to provide counsel to EPA over scientific studies and technical issues.
The proposed regulatory rollbacks
Clean Water Act
The board is looking into the Waters of the US (WOTUS) rule. The ruling limits selected wetlands and waterways from being part of the Clean Water Act.
Based on the boards finding:
The proposal for WOTUS does not fully coincide with existing EPA practices. It may not fully fulfill the objective of the Clean Water Act.
The Clean Water Act aims to restore and maintain biological, chemicals, and physical balance of US water supplies.
The Trump administration’s defense over the WOTUS rule is their preference to follow legal and policy decisions rather than scientific studies.
Scientific Studies
The board analyzed the draft on Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule and found another set of irregularities in it.
The analysis came out with several key points that SAB sees as a problem, like
- Raw data is defined in multiple definitions that left the real purpose unclear.
- Issues over the privacy law – “confidentiality.”
- Data sets are not replicable
- Huge costs
Rollback on clean cars
The clean car rollback is a joint agreement between the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The primary component of this program is the Clean Air Act. In this ruling, the existing waiver imposed in California will be revoked.
The revocation will set higher standards in vehicle emission tests, and the practice of zero-emission vehicles across states will minimize smog and air pollution around the country.
Power plant regulations
The proposed regulatory rollback mentioned EPA scraping the determining factor of what is “appropriate and sufficient amount of released mercury and other pollutants from coal and oil-fired power plants.
The SAB pointed out that EPA didn’t follow the inclusions from the Clean Air Act that an updated review should be conducted to assess if there should be any changes in the allowed residual risk.
EPA currently imposes a limit that has not been changed and examined since 2012.
According to the board:
For future mercury regulation, EPA should conduct a new risk assessment test.
