Public Comment

The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) opposes the proposed weakening of Risk Management Programs under the Clean Air Act on the basis that the proposed rule provides inadequate justifications for limiting information availability; the proposed rule places first responders, facility workers, and fenceline communities in unnecessary risk; and information removals undermine the public’s ability to comment on the proposed rule.

The Environmental Data and Governance asserts that the removal and restriction of access to resources relevant to the EPA’s proposed rule undermines the notice-and-comment rulemaking process by restricting commenters’ ability to account for the harms, risks, and impacts of ethylene oxide in their comments. By removing EPA webpages that discuss risks
of the EtO to human and environmental health and how to mitigate them; EtO facilities located in communities with high risk and federal efforts to mitigate harms from these facilities; and the regulatory history of EtO, the agency is undermining the public’s ability to provide evidential claims in their public comments. Through its removal and limitation of this essential ethylene oxide information, EPA has turned its back on the responsibility to facilitate meaningful public comment on the proposed rule. As such, we urge the EPA to restore access to these resources in order to hold a fair and just public comment period for this proposed rule.

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.