Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed 4 comments on this docket between Jul 27, 2022 and Apr 9, 2026. 34 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 113d ago.
Please see the attached comments from the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Coming Clean, Clean Water Action, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, opposing EPA's proposal to delay compliance deadlines for the 2024 worst-case discharge rule and to remove references to climate change and environmental justice from the rule.
Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Coming Clean, and Clean Water Action submit the attached comment and attachments.
Environmental justice, public health, and environmental organizations submit the attached comments.
Dear EPA Administrator Regan, Please accept these 23,245 public comments from members and online activists of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) urging the EPA to finalize the strongest possible "Worst Case Discharge" rule for preventing hazardous substances from polluting our water and harming our health during extreme weather events. During extreme storms, chemical facilities that house hazardous substances can spill, leak, or explode, releasing a toxic concoction into local waterways and polluting the drinking water of nearby communities. Climate change is making these weather events more frequent and more severe, increasing the risk of toxic spills and the threats they present to public health and the environment. Black, Brown, and poor communities are disproportionately burdened by this pollution because facilities producing and storing hazardous substances -- including known human carcinogens -- are more frequently located in or adjacent to these communities. This rule is long overdue. While it is encouraging to see that the EPA intends to rectify this threedecades long injustice, it is critical that your agency's final rule covers all facilities where a hazardous substance discharge threatens significant harm to local waterways, prioritizes protecting drinking water quality and public health, and adequately protects environmental justice communities and the broader public. That's why we are standing with NRDC and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform in urging the EPA to adopt the strongest possible "Worst Case Discharge" rule -- one that provides robust protections for communities, public health, and the environment. Thank you! Sincerely, Josue
The Clean Water Act (CWA) states that regulations shall be issued "which require an owner or operator of a tank vessel or facility ... to prepare and submit ... a plan for responding, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, and to a substantial threat of such a discharge, of ... a hazardous substance." The Environmental Protection Agency is considering developing a regulatory action to require planning for worst case discharges of CWA hazardous substances under section 311(j)(5)(A).
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