Latest news with #deregulation
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fast Company
The Trump administration is trying to bring back asbestos
Since President Trump took office in January, his administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been on a deregulation spree. So far, the agency's leaders have expressed interest in rolling back regulations around forever chemicals, or PFAs; reversing a cornerstone finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous for public health; and weakening enforcement of coal ash regulations. This week, new court documents indicate the EPA has set its sights on walking back protections from another toxin: asbestos. Based on court documents released on Monday, the EPA intends to 'reconsider' a ruling, passed by the Biden administration in 2024, that banned chrysotile asbestos, the last form of asbestos used legally in the U.S. Per a release issued at the time of the ruling, 50 other countries had already banned chrysotile asbestos, which is most commonly used in the industrial process of making chlorine and on components in the automotive industry. 'The action marks a major milestone for chemical safety after more than three decades of inadequate protections and serious delays during the previous administration to implement the 2016 amendments,' the Biden administration wrote. 'Exposure to asbestos is known to cause lung cancer, mesothelioma, ovarian cancer, and laryngeal cancer, and it is linked to more than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.' Now, in response to a petition from the Texas Chemistry Council, it's possible that chrysotile asbestos will once again be a permissible manufacturing material. According to the new court documents, 'EPA leadership has reviewed the Asbestos Rule and now intends to reconsider the Rule through notice-and-comment rulemaking,' noting that this process, including any regulatory changes, is expected to take approximately 30 months. This won't be the first time that a Trump administration has tried to bring back asbestos. In 2018, his first administration's EPA enacted a 'SNUR' (or Significant New Use Rule) allowing the manufacture of new asbestos-containing products to be petitioned and approved by the federal government on a case-by-case basis. Strangely enough, Trump himself also wrote in his 1977 book Art of the Comeback that he believed asbestos bans were a conspiracy 'led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
What the SEC's Scrapping of Biden-Era Proposals Means for Advisors
The SEC is letting everyone know there's a new sheriff in town. The Securities and Exchange Commission withdrew more than a dozen proposals put forth during Biden-era SEC Chair Gary Gensler's tenure last week. At the same time, the agency announced multiple senior-level appointments that are expected to influence everything from trading oversight to registered investment advisors and product guidance. The moves signify that current Chair Paul Atkins is ready to bring a light regulatory touch back to wealth management and the financial industry as whole. 'This ain't Gensler's SEC,' said Bill Singer, a lawyer with more than 40 years' experience in securities law. 'The appointments are in furtherance of deregulation and putting on a more business-friendly and right-wing face.' READ ALSO: Wells Fargo's Hot on Energy, Financials. Not so Much on Consumers and Millennial Women Are Investing More Money Earlier, Says Schwab The SEC named Brian Daly as director of the Division of Investment Management effective July 8. Daly most recently served as a partner at law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where he guided advisors on legal and compliance programs as well as operational and trading issues. Additionally, the agency named Jamie Selway as director of the Division of Trading and Markets. A few old faces are returning to the SEC, too: Corallium Advisors founder and former Ernst & Young partner Kurt Hohl was named chief accountant effective July 7. He previously served on the SEC from 1989 to 1997. Erik Hotmire took over as chief external affairs officer on Monday and previously served as a senior advisor during the George W. Bush administration. 'The expectation was that we were going to get a batch of lightweight political appointees, and we're not,' Singer told Advisor Upside. Rules? What Rules? The SEC also withdrew 14 proposals made under Gensler that would have provided guidance on predictive data analytics, RIAs' cybersecurity responsibilities, advisors' outsourcing requirements and more. There's danger in both over-regulation and under-regulation, Singer said, adding that helping the wealth management industry flourish while also better protecting the public is a complex task. 'The hope is that vulnerable investors — the widows, the orphans, the individuals [in] retirement, the financially undereducated — are protected by the federal government,' he said. 'The big boys can fend for themselves.' This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive financial advisor news, market insights, and practice management essentials, subscribe to our free Advisor Upside newsletter. Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
State Lawmakers, Like EPA, Seek To Repeal Emissions Standards
Federal and state lawmakers aim to reduce electricity costs by repealing emissions reduction ... More mandates. Last week the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled the Trump administration's latest deregulatory action, is a proposal 'to repeal all 'greenhouse gas' emissions standards for the power sector under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and to repeal amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).' The EPA's June 10 statement went on to add that the mandates targeted for repeal 'imposed massive costs on coal-, oil-, and gas-fired power plants, raising the cost of living for American families, imperiling the reliability of our electric grid, and limiting American energy prosperity.' 'Affordable, reliable electricity is key to the American dream and a natural byproduct of national energy dominance,' said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. 'According to many, the primary purpose of these Biden-Harris administration regulations was to destroy industries that didn't align with their narrow-minded climate change zealotry. Together, these rules have been criticized as being designed to regulate coal, oil and gas out of existence.' As the Trump EPA pursues those changes to federal emissions standards, Republicans who control the North Carolina General Assembly are taking a similar action at the state-level with legislation to repeal emissions mandates. On June 10, the same day EPA Administrator Zeldin announced the White House's latest deregulatory action, the North Carolina House voted to approve Senate Bill 266, legislation that repeals the statutory mandate that utility companies achieve a 70% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. As with the EPA's new proposal, the aim of SB 266 is energy cost mitigation. Supporters of SB 266, which passed the House with bipartisan support, point to estimates projecting that repeal of the emissions reduction target for 2030 will save North Carolina ratepayers $15 billion in avoided utility cost increases over the next 25 years. 'By repealing the interim 70% carbon reduction mandate by 2030, this legislation removes a key pressure point that would have shoehorned non-dispatchable resources like wind and solar onto North Carolina's grid—regardless of cost or reliability,' said Donald Bryson, CEO of the John Locke Foundation. 'This is a smart, bipartisan step that gives the Utilities Commission more flexibility to pursue a balanced energy mix that keeps power affordable and dependable for ratepayers and businesses alike.' While SB 266 has a great deal of support from business community leaders and representatives, environmental advocacy groups and renewable energy industry lobbyists are fighting it. Shortly after SB 266 was introduced, Matt Abele with the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association spoke out against the bill, saying the proposal 'would hinder connecting more affordable resources to the grid in favor of technologies that pose a greater financial risk to ratepayers.' The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show electricity prices are rising faster than overall inflation. In fact, over the past year the average price of electricity in the U.S. has grown 87% faster than the overall Consumer Price Index. 'On an annualized basis electricity price inflation rose 4.5% compared to 2.4% for the general price level,' the Electricity Transmission Competition Coalition noted in a June 11 release. 'Monthly increases for electricity prices were significantly higher than other commodities coming in at 0.9% while commodities like food and shelter measured at 0.3% apiece, and gasoline prices dropped 2.6% on the month, marking a 12% decline over the last year.' Rising utility costs drive up prices for all goods and services, which disproportionally squeezes the budgets of low- and middle-income households. Between that, the growing disadvantage the U.S. is at relative to China when it comes to the cost of energy, and the ramp up in energy demand driven by artificial intelligence, federal and state lawmakers' prioritization of reforms aiming to rein in energy costs and expand capacity is understandable, as is the bipartisan support. SB 266 now goes back to the Senate for concurrence vote before heading to Governor Josh Stein's (D-N.C.) desk. Legislative leaders will need to first workout the differences between the House-passed SB 266 and the version of this proposal that the North Carolina Senate unanimously approved in March as part of different bill. Governor Stein, who is nearly six months into his first term, has not indicated whether he would sign SB 266. What Stein thinks of the bill, however, might not matter. That's because a dozen House Democrats voted for the bill and only one of those 12 would need to join with Republicans to overturn a veto of SB 266 should that be necessary.
CNN
5 days ago
- Business
- CNN
The Trump Environmental Protection Agency is telling staff to stop policing the oil and gas industry
The Environmental Protection Agency has told staff overseeing the country's industrialized Midwest — a region plagued by a legacy of pollution — to stop enforcing violations against fossil fuel companies, multiple sources told CNN. The directive, which sources say was issued verbally to stunned staff in recent months, comes as EPA insiders say there is broad pressure within the agency to ease scrutiny of the industry. Efforts — implicit and explicit — to reduce enforcement fit with an ambitious deregulation agenda being enacted by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at the behest of President Donald Trump, who entered office promising to slash 'burdensome' oil and gas industry regulations and increase production. At the EPA, this has meant unwinding climate and pollution regulations finalized under former President Joe Biden, particularly those that curbed fossil fuel emissions. Just last week, Zeldin proposed weakening limits on air toxins and repealing a rule cutting climate pollution from coal and gas-fired power plants. But even before these policy changes have been formalized, the EPA is pulling back in a way that agency insiders haven't seen in previous administration changes. A spokesperson for the EPA told CNN that 'inspections and enforcement continue to occur in the energy and oil and gas industries.' Beyond shifts within the agency, sources say its enforcement office also has effectively lost a partner in the US Department of Justice's environmental division, where buyouts and firings have greatly thinned staff. 'The companies are scoffing at the cops,' one EPA enforcement staffer quipped. 'EPA enforcement doesn't have the leverage they once had.' The alarm bells began ringing just weeks into the new Trump administration, sources said, when they were asked to detail cases they were working on for review by upper management. That was not particularly unusual — but they were also asked to single out any violations involving fossil fuel. Managers told enforcement officials 'that energy-sector cases are being handled differently and less likely to be moved ahead,' one official told CNN. 'It stuck out to me,' the source said. 'I was concerned if any of those cases would be resumed again.' Four sources with knowledge of the situation at the EPA's Region 5 office, which oversees six Midwestern states, told CNN that enforcement officials were informed that 'there is a pause on oil and gas enforcement' at staff meetings. 'That is how our regional management is interpreting signals from the president,' the EPA enforcement staffer said. Officers stopped being able to issue notices of violation or send information requests to fossil fuel companies suspected of polluting, the sources told CNN. A violation notice is a prerequisite for taking a company to court for alleged violations of environmental laws. Region 5 includes active oil and gas producing states like Ohio, which accounted for about 5% of US marketed natural gas in 2024, and major production sites, such as the Whiting Refinery, the largest BP refinery in the world. The region has the most enforcement staff of any EPA office, according to David Uhlmann, a former EPA assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, 'and consistently brings major precedent setting cases,' including some of the EPA's largest historical settlements. In neighboring EPA Region 6, which includes oil and gas powerhouses such as Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico, enforcement has also 'effectively been paused,' according to another source with knowledge of the situation there. Texas produces by far the most oil and gas in the US. While fossil fuel violation notices are still being issued in the region, 'no direction is [being] given to move forward' on those cases, the source said. Even asking for information from oil and gas companies suspected of violations has drawn scrutiny, the person said. In one instance, according to one of the sources familiar with the matter, a lawyer for a fossil fuel company directly called the office's political appointee — a non-career official installed by the Trump administration — about a request to the company. Within weeks, the appointee was 'questioning the motives' of EPA officials seeking the information, the source said, adding that staff interpreted the reaction as a warning for probing the industry. An early snapshot of enforcement data from Trump's start of his second term shows the overall number of EPA enforcement cases initiated or closed across sectors has dropped by 32% compared with the first three months of the Biden administration, according to publicly available EPA data analyzed for CNN by environmental watchdog Environmental Integrity Project. The same data shows nearly 60% fewer cases have been initiated or closed compared with the first three months of Trump's first term. Although the data is preliminary, the drop is in line with policies outlined in a March 12 memo issued by EPA's acting enforcement chief at the time, Jeffrey Hall. The memo directed agency staff to consult with Trump-appointed officials before issuing any violations. Enforcements 'shall not shut down any stage of energy production (from exploration to distribution) or power generation absent an imminent and substantial threat to human health or an express statutory or regulatory requirement to the contrary,' it said. Actions would need to be approved by Hall, or someone he delegated. The memo also directed staff to stop cracking down on methane leak violations from oil and gas operations, a major policy priority of the Biden administration. Uhlmann, the former senior EPA official, said any pause on enforcing environmental laws for a specific industry is alarming. 'EPA is giving a competitive advantage to companies that break the law and don't make the necessary financial investment to comply with the law,' Uhlmann told CNN, adding that it 'will make climate change worse and leave communities unprotected from harmful pollution.' In an email to CNN, an EPA spokesperson said fossil fuel industry enforcement continues in line with Trump's energy dominance executive orders. 'Inspections and enforcement continue to occur in the energy and oil and gas industries,' the spokesperson said. 'At any facility involved in energy production or power generation, EPA's compliance assurance and enforcement program will prioritize addressing violations that threaten human health and safety or risk releases or accidents that would disrupt energy production or power generation.' The EPA spokesperson also pointed to several oil and gas settlements it says it has finalized as proof of its enforcement activity under the Trump administration. However, all of those cases were initiated and negotiated during the Biden administration. EPA sources told CNN that under the new administration, the dynamics between the industry and the agency have dramatically shifted. Cuts at the Justice Department's Environmental and Natural Resources Division, or ENRD, has meant that 'the environmental enforcement section of DOJ has been decimated,' one EPA employee familiar with the matter told CNN. 'There's no one to do the work.' Several EPA sources say they are unable to negotiate penalties or terms for fixing oil and gas violations. 'It's not a small problem, it's a big problem,' one of them said. A Justice Department official told CNN that despite cuts to the unit, the ENRD has continued to bring and litigate cases in the usual manner. Yet, the Justice Department is making a point of defending the fossil fuel industry. Last month it filed suit to block Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Vermont's plans to fine fossil fuel companies for contributing to harm brought by climate change. When announcing the lawsuit, Attorney General Pam Bondi said her agency 'is working to 'Unleash American Energy' by stopping these illegitimate impediments to the production of affordable, reliable energy that Americans deserve.' Yet there is support for some pollution regulations within the oil and gas industry itself. Companies like ExxonMobil have previously expressed support for cracking down on methane leaks, as such leaks can be captured and sold as natural gas. An independent 2022 Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis report, for example, estimates that tighter rules and enforcement could help the oil and gas companies recoup some $4.6 billion of product that would escape through methane leaks over the next 10 years. 'The irony is that the gas industry itself has identified methane reductions as a priority,' said Mark Brownstein of the Environmental Defense Fund, which has worked extensively with oil and gas companies to clamp down on methane emissions. 'The failure to enforce methane requirements is not just a problem for public health and the environment; it's a waste of a national energy resource,' Brownstein said.
E&E News
13-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Senate axes regulation-slashing measure from megabill
A major deregulatory proposal that Republican hardliners had hoped to include in their party-line megabill was cut in the Senate. Absent from a new section of the GOP budget reconciliation bill released Thursday is language from the 'Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act,' which would have given Congress final approval over certain agency rules and would have expanded Congress' ability to undo rules already in place. Initial versions of the House reconciliation bill included parts of the 'REINS Act.' But House leadership slashed it at the eleventh hour, replacing it instead with a blanket appropriation for the White House's Office of Management and Budget to conduct deregulatory actions. Advertisement The Senate Judiciary Committee's portion of the megabill, released Thursday night, included no mention of 'REINS Act,' and also excluded the funding the House wanted for the budget office.
