B&C® Biobased and Sustainable Chemicals Blog

By   Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. On January 19, 2021, EPA issued a request for comment on petitions submitted in 2020 for a waiver of the RFS obligations that apply to 2019 and 2020. The petitions argue that recent events warrant EPA exercising its general waiver authority on the basis of severe economic harm. In late March 2020, a group of small refineries requested a waiver of the 2019 and 2020 RFS obligations. In...

By   Lynn L. Bergeson  On January 12, 2021, EPA and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that advances collaboration and communication on EPA’s review of new chemicals under TSCA. EPA states that the MOU provides a framework for coordination and communication between the two agencies on exposure to new chemicals in the workplace and will help achieve the agencies’ shared goal of ensuring workers are...

By   Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A.  EPA, on January 15, 2021, issued a proposed rule to modify certain compliance dates under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The proposed deadline extension for the 2019 compliance year and the associated deadline for submission of attest engagement reports for the 2019 compliance year for small refineries are as follows: November 30, 2021, and June 1, 2022, respectively. The second extension would be for the 2020...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. On January 27, 2021, U.S. President Biden signed an “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” which established a National Climate Task Force (Task Force) and puts the climate crisis at the forefront of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Highlighting the urgency in addressing the climate crisis, this EO requires short-term global reductions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and net-zero...

By Lynn L. Bergeson  On January 13, 2021, DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced the availability of $123.6 million in funding and $44.7 million of cost share available for 46 projects to stimulate technology innovation, improve energy productivity of American manufacturing, and enable the manufacturing of cutting-edge products in the United States. The 46 projects that will be selected under this funding opportunity announcement will focus in...

By   Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. On January 19, 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its Plastics Innovation Challenge Draft Roadmap (Draft Roadmap) alongside a Request for Information (RFI) seeking stakeholder input on the draft document. The Plastics Innovation Challenge is a DOE program focused on accelerating innovations in energy-efficient plastic recycling technologies. The aim of the Plastics Innovation Challenge is to make domestic...

By Lynn L. Bergeson  On February 1, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana granted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) January 31, 2021, unopposed motion to vacate and remand its January 6, 2021, final rule on “Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions and Influential Scientific Information” (86 Fed. Reg. 469). EDF v. EPA, No. 4:21-cv-03-BMM. On January 11, 2021, the Environmental Defense...

On January 11, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a proposed rule that would amend the 2018 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) fees rule.  86 Fed. Reg. 1890.  Under TSCA, EPA collects fees from chemical manufacturers and processors to help fund implementation and to ensure that public health and the environment continue to be protected.  TSCA requires EPA to review its fees every three years and, after consulting with parties potentially...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on January 8, 2021, that it released an updated and improved version of OncoLogic™, a system used to evaluate a chemical’s potential to cause cancer.  EPA states that, in partnership with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it developed “a more user-friendly version of the most widely used piece of this system, greatly expanding its usability across the agency and the scientific...

By  Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. Researchers at Swansea University’s Energy Safety Research Institute have developed a new method that produces spheres that have strong capacity for carbon capture and work at a large scale. Described as “[a] fast, green and one-step method for producing porous carbon spheres, which are a vital component for carbon capture technology and for new ways of storing renewable energy,” the method was developed by a...