Five Major Issues for EPA and Farmers

PHILADELPHIA (DTN) -- EPA Administrator Michael Regan on Friday spotlighted rural investments in new green funds while saying the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies (GREET) model update is coming in the "very near future" and efforts to help farmers with agricultural chemicals are hampered by funding restrictions by Congress.

Regan took questions from members of the Society of Environmental Journalists at the group's annual meeting. He is the first EPA administrator to attend the group's meeting in two decades.

EPA GREEN FUND: $4 BILLION FOR RURAL TOWNS

EPA on Thursday announced eight community development banks and nonprofits will oversee a $20 billion "green bank" to provide grants to finance local clean-energy projects.

Regan noted 20% of that funding, or $4 billion, would go to rural communities. Overall, 70% of the funds must go to socially disadvantaged or low-income communities.

Regan also pushed back on Republicans calling the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund a "slush fund" and efforts to pull the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

"I just can't help but be frustrated with disingenuous attitudes from those on Capitol Hill, who want public-private partnerships, legislate public-private partnerships, were given the assignment to implement it and then they complained about public-private partnerships," he said.

Regan said the organizations tasked with providing the grants to communities have a history of leveraging private capital for their projects. He highlighted links to independent bankers and private equity groups in creating the green fund.

"We know, based on the aid recipients that we've chosen, (and) the metrics that we put in place, we're going to pull hundreds of billions of private capital off the sidelines," Regan said.

More details can be viewed here: https://www.epa.gov/… .

UPDATE ON GREET MODEL

Despite clamoring from biofuel groups for the Biden administration to hurry up and complete its update of the GREET life cycle model, Regan did not provide many specifics to DTN's question about when the update will be done and how EPA would apply the new model to the Renewable Fuels Standard. Regan said the update, which was initially expected March 1, would be coming "very soon."

EPA plays a critical role in developing a sustainable aviation fuels market for U.S. ethanol and biodiesel industries, which depends on how EPA ties an updated GREET model to the Renewable Fuels Standard.

"From day one, (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack and I decided to sit down and really look at the relationship between EPA and USDA, and how we could heal some of those relationships and think about how we can use science to tackle some of the common issues that we have. And as we think about the GREET model, and some of the applications of the GREET model, Tom and I decided that there needed to be some updates to that model if we wanted to use that model for some of the future programs that USDA, EPA, Treasury and others were designing," Regan said. "So, USDA and EPA and some of the federal family decided to put some money into updating that model so that its application could be Clean Air Act-compliant. We're going through that process. I feel good about that process because we have all the players at the table. And I think that the timeline that we originally announced has fallen by a couple of weeks, if not a month, but in the near future, the very near future, we'll have that model up and running and applied in the ways that we said it will be applied."

AGRICULTURAL CHEMICALS

Efforts to work with the agricultural industry to register new pesticides have been hampered by a lack of funding while EPA continues to face litigation over pesticide registrations and a lot of the lawsuits "have not been beneficial to the public," Regan said.

"So, we're trying to thread a needle. The first needle is using what we know as the best sound science to evaluate all of these pesticides and herbicides," he said.

Regan added, "How can we look at registering new products that we know are safer, that we can get to the market faster? I'll tell you that in my conversations with the ag industry, Farm Bureau and others, we have a list of products we'd like to register very quickly to replace some of these that we don't like so well. But we don't have the funding to move as fast as we would like to protect these things."

MISSISSIPPI HYPOXIA TASK FORCE

Journalists from the University of Missouri Ag & Water Desk asked Regan about the ineffectiveness of the EPA-led Mississippi River Hypoxia Task Force, which has failed to meet its goals in reducing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from nonpoint sources.

Regan said the task force "is a priority," but also, "to your point, it is a tough issue."

EPA has made a lot of progress in dealing with nutrient runoff, he said.

"I spend a lot of time with Secretary Vilsack and my team on how we can do things to better tackle nutrients in this country," Regan said. "And so that's an area where we can spend some time talking with you about all of the tactics we're using to tackle nutrient loading, whether it's the Chesapeake Bay or any of these other areas that we'd like to talk about."

EPA has some regulatory authority that "we are leveraging to the maximum of our ability," but Regan added that making more gains on runoff requires working more with USDA and farmers.

"This is an area where we have to have a partnership, not only with USDA but with the agriculture community, to really design more creative and rewarding voluntary programs as we think about how we look at agriculture, farming and other practices in this country," he said.

WOTUS AND SACKETT CASE

Pointing to the Supreme Court ruling on waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) regulations last May in the Sackett case, Regan said, "the Supreme Court went further than those who were challenging us in its ruling, which set back that portion of water protection over 50 years."

In the Sackett case, the Supreme Court rolled back national wetlands protections by concluding that "waters of the U.S." only include streams and wetlands that have a continuous surface connection to traditionally navigable waterways.

On the current WOTUS rule, Regan went back to a phrase he likes to use, "We want to measure twice, cut once."

Still, 26 states right now are suing EPA over the new WOTUS rule that came out in September. A group of agricultural organizations has also intervened in the case. The lawsuits in federal courts in both North Dakota and Texas argue EPA's latest rule goes beyond the Supreme Court's waterway definitions in Sackett.

"It's not that we're being conservative. We want to be strategic because our job is to protect people and the planet," Regan said.

"And so, I would love to have our teams talk about how we could do a better job storytelling or sharing information about what EPA's role is, the role of Congress, the role of the courts, and how we try to balance all of those things at the end of the day," he added. "A lot of people we engage with, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners, think that politics drive a lot of these decisions. And it's really not what's really driving. What I'm doing as administrator is the balance between the courts, Congress and EPA is authority, and how we make sure that every single decision that we make is as protective of public health and the environment as possible. So would love to connect with you and think through how we do a better job of that."

Also see, "States, Ag Groups Wage Fight Against Amended WOTUS Rule in Federal Courts," https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @ChrisClaytonDTN

(c) Copyright 2024 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.