Court Clarifies Scope of Industries That Can Use Toxic Solvent

Battery and certain other companies that use or make trichloroethylene can keep doing so without complying with a 2024 EPA rule, while many other commercial and industrial users must work towards compliance, a federal court said on Friday.

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which oversees lawsuits challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 trichloroethylene (TCE) restriction rule narrowed the scope of a stay the Fifth Circuit issued earlier this year before the cases were consolidated in the Third Circuit.

The order clarifies regulatory uncertainty by narrowing the scope of allowed TCE uses so they’re consistent with a ...