EPA’s Regan Sees Urgency in New Rules Despite Legal Headwinds

The EPA is urgently updating regulations to address climate change without regard to the Congressional Review Act, even as the agency faces legal headwinds, administrator Michael Regan said Friday.

“My general philosophy on the CRA is that’s sort of secondary for me,” Regan said, speaking at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference in Philadelphia. “The primary driver for me is the sense of urgency we face in terms of impacts of climate change.”

The Environmental Protection Agency is trying revise regulations as quickly as possible, he said. While others are focused on how Congress might use the CRA to reverse new regulations in 2025, families facing the impacts of chemical pollution and climate change are the driving force behind the EPA’s swift pace of writing new regulations, Regan said.

But at the same time, unfavorable court rulings and the prospect of the US Supreme Court tossing out Chevron deference are forcing the EPA to be more careful in its rulemaking, Regan said.

“We face headwinds in the courts on a lot of our issues,” he said. “Part of our strategy is to be sure that we understand the current court culture that we’re in, and make sure that every action, every rule, every policy is more durable, as legally sound as possible.”

Regan cited the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Sackett v. EPA, which reduced the power of the agency to protect many streams and wetlands under the Clean Water Act, as an example of the legal headwinds the agency faces.

Sackett narrowed the definition of waters of the US, or WOTUS, an issue that had been unresolved for decades. Regan said EPA “followed the science” in defining WOTUS, but when it was challenged in court, the justices’ ruling went beyond the scope of the details of the Sackett case itself.

After the ruling, “we don’t want to overreach,” Regan said. “We want to measure twice, cut once. We want to be strategic.”

New rules need to “lead with the science” and remain “technology-neutral” while clearly articulating the EPA’s legal authorities for the regulations, he said.

“The only thing we can do is control what we can control,” Regan said.

“That means if we have to move a tiny bit slower, so that we can write the rule more strategically or stronger based on what we’ve seen in the last couple of years,” the agency will do so to ensure its regulations are “durable,” he said.

PFAS Rule Coming Soon

Among those are the nation’s first-ever standards for PFAS in drinking water, which will be finalized in the “coming weeks,” Regan said.

The standards will “attempt to make up for lost time,” and the first step is “going to be a very strong step,” he said.

Those regulations, proposed last year, are expected to limit perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), and four additional per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water.

Water utilities are expected to be required to monitor the PFAS, reduce levels exceeding the finalized limits, and notify their customers if the PFAS levels are above the EPA’s limits.