Union of Concerned Scientists
MARCH 18, 2024
Last week, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized updated regulations for certain facilities that emit ethylene oxide (EtO), a colorless, cancer-causing gas. For the first time, the government will regulate fugitive or “unintended” emissions and require permanent total enclosure of sterilization operations.
Legal Planet
OCTOBER 10, 2023
From 1960 to 2005, coal use grew more or less steadily by 18 million tons per year. The decline probably wasn’t due to environmental regulation. The passage of the 1970 Clean Air Act and its major 1990 Amendments don’t show up at all in a graph of coal use. electricity to about one-fifth today. Download as PDF
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Union of Concerned Scientists
FEBRUARY 21, 2024
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates emissions of EtO, yet the agency is years behind on updating standards and control requirements, despite mounting evidence of the harm of long-term EtO exposure. A decade overdue , EPA is finalizing updated regulations for commercial sterilizers now.
Union of Concerned Scientists
JULY 1, 2022
That’s because the case, which was about the nature and scope of EPA authority in regulating carbon emissions from existing power plants, turned on a rule that does not exist. Because while this decision does still recognize EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it simultaneously sharply curtails the agency’s ability to do so.
Legal Planet
DECEMBER 6, 2021
The Clean Power Plan (CPP) was the Obama Administration’s signature climate effort. This 2015 regulation aimed to move state power grids away from coal and toward renewable energy. Yet the Supreme Court is now set to address numerous challenges to this zombie regulation. The Clean Power Plan was a noble effort.
Union of Concerned Scientists
FEBRUARY 9, 2023
A decade later, in 2005, the agency contemplated banning new commercial sterilizers from using the gas, forcing them to use alternatives. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to review—and update—its ethylene oxide emissions standards every eight years, but the last time it did so was in 2006.
Acoel
JUNE 29, 2022
These air quality impacts are minimal compared with the major ozone reductions resulting from the 1998 SIP Call, which resulted in more than 80,000 megawatts of coal capacity being retrofitted with SCRs. The 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) provided smaller but significant air quality improvements following its implementation in 2010.
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