Waste facilities expected to escape effects from federal climate rollback, for now

In this Waste Dive article, Jacob Wallace covers the U.S. EPA’s rollback of the 2009 endangerment finding, which underpins many climate regulations. While unlikely to directly affect waste and recycling industry regulations, it may have broader environmental and operational effects. This regulatory change is part of a broader effort to reduce federal climate regulations, amid significant debate over its economic and environmental implications.

• Endangerment finding rollback details: The EPA stated the Clean Air Act does not require regulating climate-warming emissions and claimed deregulation would save $1.3 trillion for consumers, though environmental groups dispute this.
• Waste industry impacts and concerns: While landfill emissions regulations remain unaffected, the industry faces challenges from climate change, such as increased worker heat risks and more disaster recovery work, which could raise costs and risks.
• Regulatory uncertainty and reporting programs: The rollback may cause regulatory uncertainty, especially if the federal Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program is shut down, potentially leading to a patchwork of state regulations that complicate compliance for waste facilities.
• Legal and scientific controversy: The rollback is legally challenged and based partly on a disputed Climate Working Group report, with critics arguing that policy is being driven by ideology rather than science.

The original article appears on Waste Dive and with more detail on the SCS Engineers blog, Thoughts on EPA’s Endangerment Finding Rollback – we encourage sharing both!