EDGI is expanding its Public Comments Initiative! Launched in 2024 to encourage effective engagement with federal rulemaking, the initiative now includes a workshop series and expanded resources to help more individuals, communities, and organizations write effective public comments on proposed federal environmental rules.
Public Comment Workshops
EDGI’s public comment workshops acquaint attendees with the specifics of proposed rules and provide essential strategies for writing public comments.
Each workshop focuses on a specific proposed environmental rule, explaining key components of the proposed rule, providing tools and tips for writing public comments, and answering questions about the proposed rule or about public comments in general. The workshops provide in-depth knowledge on the environmental issue related to the rule, including regulatory chronology, historical context, and scientific information.
EDGI’s initial workshops in this series covered proposed rules related to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Risk Management Program, Ethylene Oxide (EtO) emissions standards, coal ash disposal standards, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) regulations.
Risk Management Plan
EDGI co-hosted a workshop with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) research manager Darya Minovi on EPA’s proposal to weaken chemical disaster prevention requirements in the Risk Management Program (RMP). The proposed rule eliminates key reporting requirements, such as planning and community notification requirements for natural hazards like hurricanes and floods, as well as provision requirements for backup power sources for monitoring equipment, putting workers and frontline communities at risk.
The workshop explained how the proposal would redline these and other elements of the RMP rule and how these changes would impact the 177 million people living in worst-case scenario zones of chemical disasters. The workshop also included specific guidance on writing targeted, impactful public comments. Learn more:
Ethylene Oxide
EDGI co-hosted this workshop with Darya Minovi from UCS on EPA’s proposal to weaken Ethylene Oxide (EtO) emissions standards. The proposed rule would allow for increased emissions at sterilizer facilities that use ethylene oxide, despite the chemical being a known cancer-causing air pollutant.
The workshop detailed the harms of ethylene oxide and the increased cancer risk that the proposed rule would pose to 13 million individuals. With EDGI’s Website Governance team documenting the removal of essential Ethylene Oxide resources from EPA’s website, we also shared tips for commenting on the impacts of these information removals. Learn more:
Coal Ash
EDGI co-hosted this workshop with coal ash expert Dr. Grace Schwartz on EPA’s proposed rule to weaken standards for the disposal of coal ash, or coal combustion residuals (CCR). The proposed rule would create exemptions for several types of coal ash sites and weaken groundwater monitoring and protection across the board. Coal ash is one of the largest sources of industrial waste and contains hazardous toxins, yet the proposed rule would loosen or entirely rollback rules around its storage.
In this workshop we provided a comprehensive history of coal ash regulation and detailed the ways coal ash enters water systems and its impact on environmental health. We also discussed commenting strategies, including providing recent data or research on health and environmental impacts that EPA failed to include in the proposed rule and docket. Learn more:
PFAS
This workshop featured a panel of PFAS experts from EDGI, including Phil Brown, Alissa Cordner, and Marianne Sullivan, who discussed EPA’s two proposals to weaken drinking water protections related to PFAS, or forever chemicals.
The proposed extension rule would allow water system providers to delay compliance with regulations for an additional two years (until 2031), enabling continued exposure to harmful forever chemicals and leaving the door open for disproportionate impacts on people in low income communities, communities of color, and small and rural areas. The proposed rescission rule would remove regulations on a specific subset of forever chemicals, despite their proven negative health impacts, solely on procedural grounds.
In this workshop our panelists described different sources of PFAS, how they enter our environment, and the science of how these chemicals impact human health. The panelists also shared the history of PFAS regulation and deregulation at federal and state levels, giving additional context around the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Learn more:
To date, these workshops have drawn audiences with varied experience in both the rule topics and writing public comments. Attendees have included members of environmental organizations seeking to improve the quality of their public comments, individuals whose communities are at risk of being directly impacted by the proposed rules, and researchers interested in writing comments on proposed rules related to their field of work.
Join us for our next workshop on August 18, 2026, on NSF’s proposal politicizing its grantmaking process.
Proposed Rules Resource Hub
EDGI also launched a Proposed Rules Resource Hub that collates information about proposed federal environmental rules. The Hub offers information packets on key proposed rules selected by the EDGI team. These packets act as a library of relevant information for understanding a proposed rule and writing a public comment in response. Typically, the resources for each rule include: a summary of the proposed rule, links to its full text in the Federal Register and Regulations.gov, directions for where and how to submit a comment, links to federal resources to contextualize the scientific evidence on a proposed rule, key resources from the docket, supplementary analysis from scholars and environmental groups, and EDGI’s commentary on the rule.
Going Forward and How to Get Involved
As we continue to expand the public comments initiative, we will host more workshops, write analyses on website changes related to proposed rules, and add information packets in the Proposed Rules Resource Hub as new proposed rules are announced.
Do you or your organization have an interest in a specific topic or a proposed rule? Would you like EDGI to host a workshop overviewing public comment writing for your community or your organization? Reach out to us at contact@envirodatagov.org for more information or to stay informed about future workshops.
And don’t forget to join us for our next workshop on August 18, 2026, on NSF’s grantmaking proposal: