The current administration has undertaken a comprehensive approach to reforming environmental regulations. To better understand this process, it may be helpful to step back for some historical perspective.

Where It Began

In the 1970s, many of industry’s best practices resulted in typical discharges and emissions that were unregulated and unchecked. As the environmental and health impacts of these practices were identified and highlighted, federal legislation calling for new regulatory controls was passed to reduce releases of harmful pollutants to air, water, and land. One example of the need for such controls: The Cuyahoga River in Ohio actually caught fire from the pollutants discharged into its waters. Over the next several decades, the much-needed, traditional command-and-control approach to environmental regulations produced significant reductions in discharges and emissions from the original unchecked environmental releases.

Refining Controls

Environmental regulatory controls were continually refined further to produce even greater reductions in releases to the environment based on new and evolving environmental control technologies. In many cases the command-and-control approach was enhanced by cooperative partnerships between EPA and industry that focused not only on pollution controls but also pollution prevention efforts. The culmination of all of these regulatory controls resulted in significant reduction of releases, well over 90% from 1990’s levels in many cases. AFS participated in EPA’s Sector Strategies program that documented these positive accomplishments.

New Issues

Despite the huge success of the existing regulatory programs, starting in the late 2000s, environmental regulations began to focus on new challenges including: climate change issues, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and energy fuel sources, among other things. The historic U.S. Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, upheld EPA’s endangerment finding that identified GHG emissions as harmful to human health and the environment, and therefore, subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. This court ruling has served as the foundation for climate change and GHG emissions regulations.

Regulatory Avalanche

The Biden administration took the regulatory agenda to new heights by adding $1.7 trillion in new regulatory costs over four years. That was 30 times more than the new regulatory costs added during the first Trump administration, and three times more than the first four years of the Obama administration. Included in this initiative were comprehensive climate change rules to restrict GHG emissions, eliminate carbon-based fuels, promote renewable energy, and impose electric vehicle mandates. In addition, the Biden administration incorporated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles and environmental justice considerations into new regulatory requirements impacting all industries.

Furthermore, existing regulations were replaced with more stringent and difficult to achieve standards such as the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5 emissions that was set at or below background levels for much of the nation. Regulations for new emerging contaminants such as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have also been set at unfathomably low and difficult to measure levels of single-digit parts per trillion. All of these new regulations called for too many requirements that must be addressed too fast, and imposed significant regulatory burdens on U.S. manufacturing without corresponding environmental and health benefits. In addition, many of these new rules failed to meet the legal administrative procedure requirements and have been challenged or overturned in federal courts.

A New Agenda

The Trump administration has responded by pulling back on climate change requirements, slowing the transition to zero-carbon and renewable fuels, promoting oil and gas development, removing electric vehicle mandates, eliminating the Environmental Justice program at EPA, reorganizing EPA offices, reevaluating EPA funding priorities, and rescinding and reconsidering burdensome regulations finalized while his predecessor was in office. One example is the reconsideration of the endangerment finding for GHG emissions, which is the legal foundation for climate change regulations.

The current deregulatory efforts and EPA reorganization plan can be viewed as a course correction from the unprecedented expansive environmental policies of the Biden administration. The deregulatory actions are not eliminating regulations that have been in place for years, but rather they are targeting problematic Biden rules that are unduly burdensome, provide little, if any, additional environmental and health benefits, and have not yet been fully implemented. 

The Trump deregulatory agenda is not a dismantling of long-standing environmental controls that have produced impressive results but are focused on correcting the regulatory over-reach of the last four years. These new regulatory requirements are simply not needed––the Cuyahoga River is no longer on fire! 

As the regulatory landscape evolves, the AFS Environmental Committees will continue their work with government officials and industry stakeholders to address various challenges and opportunities, promoting the best interests of the metalcasting industry and seeking to minimize regulatory burdens.