EPA Releases Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Consistency and Transparency in Considering Costs and Benefits

On Thursday, June 7, EPA released a pre-publication version of an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in considering costs and benefits in its rulemaking processes. If the rulemaking results in a final regulation, it would cut across environmental statutes such as the Clean Air Act (CAA), Clean Water Act (CWA), Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), etc. According to the notice, “Most statutory provisions require or allow some consideration of costs and benefits when setting pollution standards, but there is variation in terminology and specificity in each law regarding the nature and scope of the cost and benefit considerations”. The SDWA has some rather specific and unique benefit-cost language, so a final regulation has the potential to impact the SDWA rulemaking process.

The comment period is 30 days from publication in the Federal Register, and publication is likely in the first part of the week of June 11th.