Category: Public Comment

EDGI opposes the proposed redefinition of “Waters of the United States” on the basis that 1. the
proposed rule lacks consideration of relevant impacts of climate change, and 2. the agencies
have removed and restricted access to crucial web resources relevant to the proposed rule
before and during its public comment period. The proposed interpretation of jurisdictional waters
disregards basic principles of hydrology and established science regarding the impacts of
climate change on the hydrologic cycle.

Since its inception in 2009, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) has provided
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies, industry, and stakeholders
with valuable, standardized data on direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from facilities
and indirect emissions from fuel suppliers. The GHGRP has produced the most robust
national dataset of GHG emissions that exists, which has been essential for developing an
understanding of GHG sources and sinks and their influence on climate change. The EPA’s
proposed amendments to the GHGRP would remove all GHG reporting requirements for
46 of the 47 reporting industries, and would postpone the remaining reporting
requirements until 2034.

EDGI opposes the proposal to rescind the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
Endangerment Finding under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act. EDGI analyzes changes to
environmental governance policies and practices, including the federal provision of public
information, and our findings demonstrate that the EPA has restricted public access to
critical information underpinning the Endangerment Finding.

The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative
– Environmental Enforcement Watch recommends that this permit be denied, and
underscores calls from Oil and Water Don’t Mix and others for a full Great Lakes
Submerged Lands Act review of Enbridge’s proposal.

We support EPA’s determination to reopen vinyl chloride’s risk prioritization. We encourage the
EPA to go further. The historical evidence shows that the industry has pushed against the
known evidence of harm to communities, workers, and the U.S. public as vinyl chloride
(especially given the replacement of lead piping in the U.S. over the next ten years, likely by
plastic alternatives) enters every waste stream, water stream, and backyard, as “vinyl chloride
can migrate to groundwater and can be in groundwater due to the breakdown of other
chemicals.

The draft Guidelines for Cumulative Risk Assessment Planning and Problem Formulation
include some strides forward in the agency’s approach to CRAs. However, we at EDGI are
disappointed that the guidelines provide very little guidance for risk assessors to actually
integrate cumulative risks into their assessment process.

We urge the CFO Council to consider the federal efficiencies that can be gleaned by providing
browsing and powerful search functioning in agency or government-wide FOIA portals. The
better the public is able to browse and search material that has already been laboriously
collected, collated, and disseminated by agency FOIA officers, the fewer duplicative requests
will be filed. Moreover, through a more effective review of previously disseminated records, the
public will be able to file more specific requests, substantially improving efficiencies in terms of
producing more narrow requests and reducing time-consuming clarification communications.

EDGI is deeply concerned both by what this decision-making process suggests for the direction
of federal transparency, and for what the direct impacts of this decision may be for public
information. Given the lack of public information regarding this transition away from FOIAonline
or requirements for new agency portals, we wonder if the presumption about FOIAs developed
during the Obama years, that “a release to one is a release to all,” is still true, especially as the
dropping costs of digital storage and other innovations make broad public access easier.

EDGI supports the thoughtful and thorough recommendations presented by OIRA, and we
want to bring attention to a key obstacle to public engagement that is not addressed by
these recommendations: the lack of required regulatory information on agency websites.
Without addressing this policy gap, the effectiveness of other fruitful recommendations,
such as “Make regulatory material more accessible and useable by members of the public,”
will be severely curtailed

We generally support the CEJST methodology, and believe it can deliver tangible benefits to
communities. With that goal in mind, we believe CEQ should consider:
EDGI’s Comment on CEQ-2022-0002 1
1. Expanding the list of communities (Census tracts) based on the inclusion of
additional criteria, namely, indicators related to the enforcement of and
compliance with environmental protection laws. We find that an additional 107
tracts could be added by including these indicators.