All Knowledge & Insights By Date

On January 25, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2012 cellulosic biofuel requirements under the renewable fuel standard. American Petroleum Institute v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 12-1139. In its January 2012 final rule, EPA projected that 8.65 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel would be produced in 2012, and determined that a reduction in the volume of total advanced biofuels was unnecessary because...

Oral arguments were held on January 16, 2013, in the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) case challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional registration of HeiQ AGS-20, a nanosilver product. NRDC filed suit on January 26, 2012, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (California). During oral arguments, EPA maintained that NRDC lacks standing to challenge the conditional registration. The judges appeared to reject EPA’s...

On January 18, 2013, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) published a Federal Register notice seeking comment on the types of hazard identification and risk management research to consider in updating its fiscal years 2013-2016 nanotechnology strategic plan. NIOSH states that it wants to “build on the accomplishments of ongoing research” to “develop strategic research goals and objectives for nanotechnology occupational safety and health research...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is scheduled to announce in the January 8, 2013, Federal Register the availability of its 2012 Regulatory Agenda. EPA’s Regulatory Agenda includes the following notice concerning nanoscale materials: Nanoscale Materials; Chemical Substances When Manufactured, Imported, or Processed as Nanoscale Materials; Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements; Significant New Use Rule: EPA is developing a proposal to establish reporting...

On December 20, 2012, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson signed a final rule setting forth EPA’s final decision on the issues for which it granted reconsideration pertaining to its March 21, 2011, final rule entitled “Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incineration Units.” The December 20, 2012, rule makes technical corrections to the March...

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is scheduled to publish in the December 19, 2012, Federal Register a request for information and comment on silver nanoparticles. According to the notice, NIOSH has initiated an evaluation of the scientific data on silver nanoparticles “to ascertain the potential health risks to workers and to identify gaps in knowledge so that appropriate laboratory and field research studies can be...

On December 11, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced a research collaboration intended to assess potential impacts of nanomaterials on people’s health and the environment.  According to EPA’s press release, the research is part of a “larger international effort” that includes: The press release states that CPSC will use the results of the research to inform:...

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson signed on November 30, 2012, a supplemental rule associated with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program. The final rule contains a lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) analysis for grain sorghum ethanol and a regulatory determination that grain sorghum ethanol qualifies as a renewable fuel under the RFS Program. According to the rule, EPA’s analysis indicates that ethanol made from grain sorghum at dry mill facilities that...

On November 28, 2012, the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) held a webinar to discuss its RCC Nanotechnology Work Plan. Canada and the U.S. created the RCC to align better their regulatory approaches in a number of areas, including nanotechnology. According to information presented during the webinar, while the U.S. has received 137 notifications concerning nanomaterial substances, Canada has received only 16. While most of the nanomaterial substances...

On November 20, 2012, Lux Research Inc. released a report entitled Bridging the Divide between Demands and Bio-Based Materials, in which the properties and commercial attractiveness of 38 applications and 21 conventional and bio-based polymers were assessed on 13 criteria, with three demand areas promising opportunity, according to Lux. Lux states that materials that fail to connect with end-user demands never reach the commercialization stage. Lux recommends that developers target large,...