In accordance with direction from the Trump administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has published a final rulemaking delaying the effective date of 30 pending regulations until at least March 21, 2017. The new regulations, which were scheduled to take effect between January and March, cover a broad range of environmental topics of both state and national applicability, and include regulations issued under the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”), the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA” or “Superfund”). The impact of the delay is not yet clear: only a few of the rules were scheduled to become effective in January, with the rest scheduled for an effective date of sometime in February or March. However, based on President Trump’s position that the environmental-regulatory framework is unnecessarily burdensome on the economy, this freeze could signal a first step in a process that may reduce federal regulatory costs imposed by EPA programs.
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