EPA Releases Year in Review, Highlighting Its Accomplishments and Environmental Progress

On January 28, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its Year in Review:  2018 (YIR).  The YIR lists the following accomplishments:

• Issued major proposals, including the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule, and the new waters of the U.S. definition;
• Provided greater regulatory certainty to states, tribes, localities, and the regulated community;
• Streamlined the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA;
• Launched cross-agency initiatives to improve risk communication on emerging contaminants and vulnerable populations;
• Initiated multiple actions to reduce lead exposure, including releasing the Federal Lead Action Plan;
• Improved enforcement compliance and assistance;
• Held EPA’s first-ever Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) National Leadership Summit and Inaugural Recycling Day Summit;
• Led international environmental efforts, including first-ever articles to prevent and reduce marine litter; and
• Ensured comprehensive and coordinated responses to multiple natural disasters.

The YIR provides the following “by the numbers” summary:

• Regulatory Reform:  EPA issued 13 final deregulatory actions in 2018.  To date, under President Trump, EPA has issued 33 final major deregulatory actions, “saving Americans almost $2 billion”;
• Air:  EPA reported that, during President Trump’s first year in office, greenhouse gas emissions from major industrial sources decreased by 2.7 percent;
• Water:  By the end of 2018, EPA closed seven Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loans totaling nearly $2 billion to help finance over $4 billion for water infrastructure projects and create up to 6,000 jobs;
• Land:  EPA deleted all or part of 22 sites from Superfund’s National Priorities List in fiscal year (FY) 2018 — “the largest number of deletions in one year since FY 2005”;
• Chemicals:  After inheriting a “backlog” of 672 new chemical submissions pending review in January 2017, under President Trump, EPA “aggressively worked to improve the review of new chemical submissions and, as a result, eliminated the initial backlog and reduced the number of cases pending review to 475 submissions by August 2018.”  EPA completed 99.7 percent of the 2,199 pesticide registration actions on-time, and registered 23 new active ingredients and 147 new uses of existing pesticides, “providing new tools to growers to meet their pest management needs”;
• Enforcement:  In FY 2018, EPA enforcement actions required the treatment, disposal, or elimination of 809 million pounds of pollutants and waste — almost twice as much as FY 2017.  EPA also entered into the largest settlement in the history of its enforcement of the Risk Management Program with the responsible party spending $150 million on major safety improvements; and
• Grants:  EPA awarded $4,451,520,905 in grants in FY 2018, including more than $63 million under the General Assistance Program, benefiting nearly all federally recognized tribes through awards to 500 tribal governments and approximately 25 intertribal consortia, $4.344 million in State and Tribal Assistance Grants, and 37 environmental education grants totaling $3,306,760 in 32 states to 13 colleges and universities, 23 stakeholder organizations, and one tribal community.

Further information on the YIR and our commentary is available in the full Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. (B&C^®) memorandum.