A federal court on Tuesday tossed a 2020 decision from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to regulate a chemical that’s used in rocket fuel and linked to thyroid issues. |
The Trump administration in 2020 said there was not a “meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction” for addressing perchlorate, which may also harm fetal brain development. The Biden administration upheld that decision last year.
But a court on Tuesday nixed that determination. The court decided that the Safe Drinking Water Act did not give the EPA the authority to reverse a 2011 decision in favor of issuing drinking water standards for perchlorate.
A concurring opinion from the court disagreed on the statutory authority question but said that the agency was working with a “biased dataset that was selectively updated” and that its decision was based on inadequate health goals.
The EPA said in 2020 that the number of people who could be consuming the chemical at concerning levels could be between 26,000 and 620,000.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com. |
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