The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was passed by Congress in 1976. Among other things, it instructed the EPA to develop and enforce rules and regulations for the handling, storage and disposal of hazardous wastes. This was a challenging task - it took several years to even come up with a definition of "hazardous waste," and the resulting definition is so convoluted and involved that it contains multiple lists, categories, properties, tests, and spreadsheets, and I can assure you that very few people fully understand it.
And then came hundreds of pages of rules and regulations - rules for generators, rules for transporters, and rules for landfills, for surface impoundments, for incinerators, for waste piles, for the protection of groundwater, and more.
The RCRA regulations also mandated that EPA would administer the program, but individual states could be authorized to run the program if they had the same or similar state laws on the books. Georgia, among many other states, prizes its independence and didn't want a bunch of Washington bureaucrats running an extensive program in their state. So they adopted the federal RCRA rules, line-for-line and every word, the only difference being in different number assignments for each chapter and verse. For example, 40 CFR Chapter 264 became Georgia Rule 391-3-11-.05.
The corrupt and partisan hacks currently on the bench in the Supreme Court have recently ruled that it's unconstitutional for Congress, the Legislative branch of the Federal government, to turn over rule making to agencies like the EPA, which is part of the Executive branch. I can follow their strict, literalist interpretation of the Constitution, but understanding doesn't mean I agree. While the Constitution doesn't say that Congress can instruct other agencies with more technical expertise to create rules and regulations, it doesn't explicitly say it can't either.
This matter seemed to have be settled in 1984 in the case of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. In that case, the Reagan-era Supreme Court decided that expert federal agencies can interpret the laws they are charged with implementing, provided their reading is reasonable. It allowed Congress to rely on the expertise within the federal government when implementing everything from health-and-safety regulations to environmental and financial laws.
Friday's landmark 6-3 ruling along ideological lines overturned the so-called "Chevron deference." The radical-activist Roberts court argued that the 1984 decision "defies the command of" the Administrative Procedure Act, requiring a court to ignore, not follow, "the reading the court would have reached had it exercised its independent judgment as required by the APA." Chief Justice Roberts said the Chevron decision was misguided because "agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do."
In other words, don't listen to those eggheads over at EPA whether or not a spent catalyst used in mineral processing that self-ignites at a temperature of 140° F is a hazardous waste or not, the courts will know better. Should bis (2-ethyl-hexyl) phthalate be considered a carcinogen based on experimental studies of brain tumors in laboratory rats? Don't ask the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Keg-Stand Kavanaugh and Amy Boney Carrot are better suited to answer that. They're judges!
Maybe we should ask Mrs. Alito and see what she runs up the flagpole. Maybe we could have Justice Gorsuch ask his Mom - after all, she used to be the head of EPA, before she had to resign in disgrace and became widely regarded as the worst EPA Administrator in history.
All kidding aside, this is one of the worst decisions yet by this abysmal and corrupt court. It is a blatant move to dismantle the Federal regulatory framework the billionaire class of business owners have been complaining about for years, and a naked power grab by the courts to establish control over the other branches of government. Is that catalyst a hazard? Is bis- carcinogenic? These rules will be litigated, and it will be up to the courts to decide. And I DON'T TRUST THE COURTS!
The Chevron overturn does not preempt RCRA and regulation of hazardous wastes. But it's just a matter of time and it won't be long, I can assure you, before they're challenged in court and then overturned. Many industries are unhappy with various aspects of RCRA compliance, many with good reasons, and they've been waiting for years for a Court like this one and a decision like last week's to litigate.
The best thing that can be done for the environment and to protect your health would be for Congress to immediately adopt the RCRA regulations in full, or in other words, amend the RCRA Act of 1976 with the current RCRA rules established by EPA. It's far more efficient to adopt the rules like Georgia and other states did than to write them anew. But either won't happen, because Congress is inept and incompetent, and will want to "fix" portions of the rules before they adopt them. RCRA has a great many flaws - I know this from 35 years of assisting industry in RCRA compliance - but Lauren Boebert, Rand Paul, and that guy who used to coach at Auburn aren't the ones to fix it. That would be EPA, but, well, never mind.
The Republicans will say that individual states should adopt their own rules and standards, but that would soon turn into a downward spiral of states lowering standards to below those of their neighbors in order to attract industry and jobs. The arms-race competition would be at the expense of the health of the citizens - you and me, pal - and we can't afford the lobbyists, expert witnesses, consultants, and spin doctors that industry will hire to convince state capitols that 120° is a reasonable temperature for self-ignition of a catalyst, and that some of those laboratory rats survived their exposure to bis (2-ethyl-hexyl) phthalate.
In other words, and I don't mean to be indelicate about this, but we're all fucked, my friends. Fucked by a corrupt and cynical court, by the narcissistic and imbecilic former President who appointed them, and by a dead-in-the-water Congress. And our only long-shot, hail-Mary hope is an 81-year-old Presidential candidate who couldn't even feign basic competency or mental acuity during a nationally televised debate.
We're doomed.
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