Product Packaging Bans
With a string of court decisions in 2013 upholding local ordinances banning or imposing a charge for the use of plastic bags, municipalities are now looking to expand the reach of such laws. San Jose has voted to ban restaurants from using plastic foam containers, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in one of his last acts before leaving office, signed into a law a bill banning the use of food packaging made from polystyrene foam unless it can be shown that the material can be recycled. Citizen initiatives and referendums promoting these and other bans will likely be more prevalent in the 2014 elections.
Farmyard Pollutants
Much attention will be focused on the EPA and environmental groups' appeal of the Alt v. EPA decision in which a court, for the first time, ruled that the Clean Water Act's "agricultural stormwater" permitting exemption applies to not only releases of manure and litter from poultry houses but also airborne emissions of pollutants from ventilation fans that end up in stormwater runoff that reaches streams and rivers. Historically, the EPA had applied the exemption only to land application of animal waste.
While nutrient pollution from agricultural waste will continue to be an issue, there will be a new focus on pathogens, antimicrobials and hormones, which a recent EPA study identified as "contaminants of emerging concern."
Coal Ash
The coal ash rulemaking roller coaster may go down its final hair-raising plunge and reach the end of its ride in 2014. A tentative settlement between the EPA and environmentalists in a pending lawsuit in the District of Columbia (Appalachian Voices v. McCarthy) would require the agency to complete the coal ash rule by the end of the year. However, the rulemaking process may yet come to another screeching halt because House Republicans are planning to propose legislation that would eliminate the mandatory requirement that the EPA review and revise its waste rules every three years, which was the basis for the environmentalists' lawsuit.
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