US appeals court kills ban on plastic containers contaminated with PFAS
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
With that mindset we would still have Asbestos factories around. The economic situation of polluters should be completely outweighed by the health and environmental concerns of the population.
>TSCA section 6(b)(4) requires EPA to establish, by rule, a process to conduct risk evaluations. Specifically, EPA is directed to use this process to “determine whether a chemical substance presents an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, without consideration of costs or other non-risk factors, including an unreasonable risk to a potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulation identified as relevant to the risk evaluation by the Administrator, under the conditions of use.”
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-23428/p-52
Also, this was even linked right below the paragraph you cited.
Peer is not the court, it's a non-profit involved in the litigation. You can read the opinion, and the court doesn't tell the EPA to use section 6, just that they can't use section 5: https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-60620-CV0.pd...
Yes they do:
>Second, the EPA may regulate chemical substances under Section 6. See 15 U.S.C. § 2605. The mandate of Section 6 is broader than Section 5, in that Section 6 applies to all chemical substances, not just new chemical substances or significant new uses of a chemical substance. See id. § 2605(a). However, the rulemaking process under Section 6 is also more rigorous than Section 5: It requires the EPA to conduct a cost-benefit analysis, weighing the negative effects of the chemical substance against the benefits of the substance and the economic consequences of prohibiting or limiting the substance. See id. § 2605(c)(2)(A)–(C). No such analysis is required under Section 5.
>We hasten to add that our ruling to this effect does not render the EPA powerless to regulate Inhance’s fluorination process. The agency can properly proceed, abiding the APA’s procedural guardrails, under TSCA’s Section 6 by conducting inter alia the appropriate cost-benefit analysis required for ongoing uses—a proposition even Inhance concedes. The EPA is just not allowed to skirt the framework set by Congress by arbitrarily deeming Inhance’s decades-old fluorination process a “significant new use.” See Perez v. Mortg. Bankers Ass’n, 575 U.S. 92, 105–06 (2015).
We banned the use of asbestos in most situations, and therefore lost the benefit of an excellent building and insulation material. But we decided that was a worthwhile tradeoff considering the well-established health impacts.
Since the outcome is unknown until after a huge amount of time and expense, how would you factor it in beforehand?
So in either case it makes no sense to try to factor in ‘market pressure’ beforehand.
Same holds for all extinct products, like leaded paints and leaded gasoline.
We can't really expect customers to make informed decisions about the large scale environmnetal and health impact of products, regulating them is exactly the job of the governing body.
That’s exactly the sort of thing that would be addressed in a cost-benefit analysis. If there’s good alternatives, the cost of the ban is lower. The issue isn’t whether expert agencies should be making these decisions, it’s that the expert agency here didn’t actually do the expert analysis the law requires.
The cost to humanity is enormous. The cost to a company is zero.
https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/asbestos-ban-and-phase-out-fede...
All meaningful regulations will have negative economic impacts on those being regulated, that’s why the Republican conference loves de-regulation, it makes their donors and themselves more money!
Surely it's good that there is one country in the world that's prepared to allow unrestricted usage of any type of chemical, a kind of vast environmental petri dish, so that the rest of the world can find out exactly what the human effects will be?
It seems that conservatives in the US would be all in favour of taking this role. Perhaps it doesn't even need to be the entire country, but just a few conservative states?
Disclaimer: I live a safe distance from the US.
So basically, any company that begins using a process that produces large quantities of hazardous chemicals is now incentivized to hide it until that process is no longer 'new' so that substantial new use rules won't apply to them? I'm sure there's no way this could go wrong.
> The rule requires companies to alert the EPA if a new industrial process creates hazardous chemicals.
Which seems unlikely to help them.
Since the fluorination process is a “decades old” process. Therefore it doesn’t apply under the “significant new use regulation” of PFAS. Therefore, company did not need to submit application (even though PFAS is clearly generated or used…)
I am not a lawyer, so could be completely wrong here
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-60620-CV0.pd...
And they specifically ignored what the statute actually says in order to get there. It's super clear from the statutory text that "significant new use" is just "a use" the EPA has determined meets certain listed criteria. In other words, it's not "a new use" the EPA determines is significant. Nor is it "a significant use" that the EPA determines is new. It's just a use of a chemical that the Administrator determines meets certain criteria, and the statute just happens to call that a "significant new use."
I mean, it really couldn't be clearer from the statutory text and structure. Which makes the 5th Circuit utterly ignoring it even more egregious.
Statutory interpretation?! We don't need no stinking statutory interpretation. We have dictionaries!
Well, you didn't mention the criteria. The terminology might be clearer after looking at them:
> §2604(a)(2) A determination by the Administrator that a use of a chemical substance is a significant new use with respect to which notification is required under paragraph (1) shall be made by a rule promulgated after a consideration of all relevant factors, including—
> (A) the projected volume of manufacturing and processing of a chemical substance,
> (B) the extent to which a use changes the type or form of exposure of human beings or the environment to a chemical substance,
> (C) the extent to which a use increases the magnitude and duration of exposure of human beings or the environment to a chemical substance, and
> (D) the reasonably anticipated manner and methods of manufacturing, processing, distribution in commerce, and disposal of a chemical substance.
Factor (A) asks whether the use is significant. (And, at the very least, strongly implies that the use must be new - the inquiry is into "projected volume", not realized volume.) Factors (B) and (C) ask whether it's new - if you're considering a process that has been going on for decades, it cannot change the type or form, or increase the duration or magnitude, of exposure to the output of that process, because people (and the environment, etc...) already have the type and level of exposure that is the result of that process. [They also ask whether it's significant, by considering relative levels of exposure ("change in magnitude or duration") as opposed to absolute levels of manufacturing.]
This tends to imply that an insignificant new use could grow into a significant old use over time (as manufacturing volume ramps up), and that in such a case, the EPA should have the option to deem that growth a "significant new use" (relying on factors (A) and (C)), but I don't get the impression that that was the argument here?
You're making the mistake of thinking "significant" here has some independent semantic meaning that must be read into the text. First, it doesn't; it's a descriptive label of the kinds of a "new use" that, if the Administrator determines fits the four criteria, is subject to statutory requirements. Second, A says nothing about significance. It says the Administrator must take into account the projected volumes involved.
As for the rest, I think what's tripping everyone up is that "use" isn't just any old use out in the world. The Code of Federal Regulations defines in great and painful detail what kinds of uses are subject to regulation: see 40 CFR Part 721, subpart B (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/part-721/subpart-B).
Manufacturers have to submit a notice of the uses they are putting the chemicals to. That gets reviewed by EPA. If EPA approves, that use (or the corresponding part in 40 CFR 720) is added to the chemical's listing in subpart E (see https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/part-721/subpart-E). But if EPA finds out that a chemical is being used in practice in a way that matches subpart B, but isn't listed in subpart E because no one sent the required notifications, they can take various actions to force compliance (under various penalties). When the manufacturer complies and submits the appropriate notifications, the use gets added to the chemical listing in subpart E.
Well, I explicitly said the opposite about "new"... is there any part of my comment that makes you think I had a different opinion about "significant"? Did you read more than those 8 words?
> Second, A says nothing about significance. It says the Administrator must take into account the projected volumes involved.
The only way for these two sentences to be compatible with each other is if you don't know what "significant" means.
How do you imagine projected volumes would be taken into account?
> We hasten to add that our ruling to this effect does not render the EPA powerless to regulate Inhance’s fluorination process. The agency can properly proceed, abiding the APA’s procedural guardrails, under TSCA’s Section 6 by conducting inter alia the appropriate cost-benefit analysis required for ongoing uses—a proposition even Inhance concedes. The EPA is just not allowed to skirt the framework set by Congress by arbitrarily deeming Inhance’s decades-old fluorination process a “significant new use.” See Perez v. Mortg. Bankers Ass’n, 575 U.S. 92, 105–06 (2015).
Ruling of the U.S. 5th Circuit: https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-60620-CV0.pd...
“EPA overstepped its authority in PFAS order: Appeals court“: https://coastalreview.org/2024/03/court-halts-epa-orders-for...
What's still unclear to me is why the article consistently calls it "the conservative fifth circuit court" as though that is part of its name (or as though there is another nonconservative one), whereas Wikipedia uses no such phrasing that I can find. Is that an artifact of the news medium being of "the other side" and wanting to emphasise that most of the judges were chosen by a party they don't like? Or are most judges party members, or how is this label decided? And isn't the whole point of being a judge that you're impartial, are they subtly alleging the court is partial to whatever laws are made by one of the two major parties or something?
Edit: I'm not sure what this reads like to y'all but it was meant as a genuine question with what I've already figured out for anyone else who doesn't know this (probably most international visitors, I figured)
Federal appellate judges are typically appointed due to their association with one of the two parties and often because they have a history of rulings favoring a certain party’s ideology in lower federal or state courts. They are officially impartial but everyone working within the system recognizes there’s tilts, and the media does too. A clear example of this is that they typically time their retirement so the party that originally appointed them can replace them.
I believe in some other countries the judiciary appoints their own replacements and in that case the ideology / politics of the judicial branch may diverge more from the legislative political parties.
Basically, the sitting president appoints circuit judges to a lifetime position. The judicial candidates are selected by senators from whichever state the judge is to be appointed.
Generally, a conservative president will only nominate conservative judges. The candidates will generally be even more conservative if the senators who nominated the candidates are also conservative.
Over time, court watchers can conclude how ideologically predisposed a judge is based on their opinions. Usually, judges appointed by conservative presidents tend to rule as conservatives (that is, side with Republican positions), and vice versa with judges appointed by democrats. This trend is so consistent that you can often predict the outcome of a case from the composition of judges hearing the case.
The Fifth Circuit is dominated by republican senators and has recently seen a lot of appointments filled by Donald Trump. As a result, the Fifth Circuit overwhelmingly rules more conservatively than its sister circuits.
In this case, the fifth circuit panel ruled against the EPA in favor of commercial plastic producers. This is in line with Republican goals to erode the power of administrative agencies. Nobody is surprised by this because the Fifth Circuit operates in service of the Republican Party. As we say, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Nobody is even pretending that this case has any actual legal merit. Even the right wing Supreme Court is having a hard time finding a reason to uphold it.
> Nobody is surprised by this because the Fifth Circuit operates in service of the Republican Party. As we say, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
These judges are not necessarily being "fed" in the corrupt way that connotes. They are people operating in accordance with their nature, and they were selected carefully during their appointment, but they might very well be capable of judicial and political independence. Lifelong appointment and all.
Second, about the structure of the courts: in the federal judiciary, there are federal district courts (roughly, where trials happen), federal circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. There federal circuit courts are courts of appeal that sit one level above the district courts. There are 13 federal circuits. There are the First through the Eleventh Circuits, as you note. There's also the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the D.C. Circuit), as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the Federal Circuit). That last one is extremely unhelpfully named, since they're all "federal circuits." The Federal Circuit hears certain types of cases specially designated for it to hear (for instance, patent appeals and appeals from two lower federal courts established for specialty jurisdiction). The numbered circuits and the D.C. Circuit are geography-based. If you're wondering why D.C. needs its own circuit, consider the metric fuckton of administrative rules and regulations made by the federal government. That mainly happens in D.C. It's more complicated than that, of course, because Congress will write into certain statutes that the D.C. Circuit has jurisdiction over appeals of challenges to those statutes. Other times, litigants may choose to sue an agency in one of the other regions.
Third, the 5th Circuit is unquestionably and unarguably conservatively aligned, just as the 9th Circuit used to be unquestionably and unarguably liberally/progressively aligned. The label is decided by looking at both outcomes and reasons given for those outcomes. Pick a hot political topic. Pick a legal case involving that topic in some way. It's extremely predictable how the 5th Circuit will rule. None of this is controversial. The controversy would come from taking the next step: if you say, "Well, they're mostly right." That makes you a conservative, and that enlists you in political controversy. Because as a factual matter, they have a historically fairly high reversal rate (i.e., among the 5th Circuit cases the Supreme Court grants cert. on, the 5th Circuit gets reversed ~80+% of the time), so they're not right in the sense that the Supreme Court agrees and thus their rulings are usually the law of the land.)
A better metric is the percentage of all cases. SCOTUS granting cert already indicates there's significant willingness to overturn more often than not
I wish I could find more fine-grained statistics than what I know off the top of my head is available (StatPacks from ScotusBlog, but there seems to be no aggregation of them, just individual ones for like 25 years; Empirical Scotus, but I see no data available to play with, just posts). I also wish I were better at statistics.
Aside from the other comment regarding who appointed the judges
> chosen by the currently elected president whenever seats in the court become vacant
This is incomplete, the judges are nominated by the executive but have to be confirmed by the senate
Until recently (first Obama term I think) practically speaking a judge needed 2/3 of the senate to be confirmed, therefore in practice judges had an incentive to at least appear as moderate if they wanted to get eventually promoted.
Now that they need just a simple majority this incentive is gone and, since courts have been progressively been forced by politicians to make decisions for them, it arguably is reversed since now presidents with a majority in the senate will want to propose the most partisan judge they can get through their own party and lower judges know this
So probably it'll get worse
So would better cities, better biking infrastructure, etc etc.
Our inability to regulate toxic materials entering our bodies is going to be the downfall of this country.
The panel essentially relies on ordinary meaning analysis of "significant new use" to decide that this (the company fluorinating its products) can't be a significant new use because it has been in business for 40+ years and that surely is not "new." The court goes that route because it says "significant new use" is not defined in the statute, 15 U.S.C. § 2604 [0]. Let's open our hymnals just to make sure that's true.
§ 2604(a)(1)(A)(i) is a prohibition on manufacturing a "new chemical substance" unless certain procedures are followed allowing the EPA to make a determination about it. Ok, this is definitely not a case about a new chemical substance. The statute talks about "significant new use" in the next subparagraph, § 2604(a)(1)(A)(ii): no person may "manufacture or process any chemical substance for a use which the Administrator has determined, in accordance with paragraph (2), is a significant new use."
Reread that subparagraph. It is up to the EPA Administrator to determine whether "a use" is a "significant new use." Well, how is s/he supposed to do that? "[I]n accordance with paragraph (2)," i.e., by following 15 U.S.C. § 2604(a)(2). In other words, whether some "use" is a "significant new use" is determined within the statutory boundaries erected in 2604(a)(2). "Significant new use" just means "a use meeting criteria listed under 2604(a)(2)." There is no other meaning for the term. It's a statutory term of art. You could call it a BongoBoomBah. If the Administrator determines that manufacturing or processing a chemical for a use is a BongoBoomBah, then no person may manufacture or process that chemical for that use. How does the Administrator decide a use is a BongoBoomBah? Look at 2604(a)(2): the Administrator promulgates a rule "after a consideration of all relevant factors, including" four specifically identified factors. If the Administrator promulgates a rule that the use is a BongoBoomBah after following the statutory guidelines, the use just is a BongoBoomBah, end of story.
But the 5th Circuit doesn't bother with any of that. They look at the definitions section, see "significant new use" isn't specifically defined, then throw up their hands and say, well, new means new, so if it's not a new use, it can't be a significant new use, ergo case dismissed. No parsing of the actual statutory text or structure. It's gotcha jurisprudence.
But it's the 5th Circuit, so... par for the course.
If a reasonable person can't read the law and determine how not to be a BongoBoomBah then...
You haven’t spent much time reviewing actual laws in the US if you think the common person should be able to easily decipher the meaning. They are generally incredibly difficult to decipher if you’re trying to read them based strictly on your understanding of the layman definition of a word.
You almost always have to read the full thing to get context and even then will have to cross reference multiple times to figure out the legal definition of the language in use. It frequently deviates from how those words are used in common speech.
I still don't understand how an existing use can be redefined as a "significant new use" based solely on the discretion of the EPA Administrator. They were presumably making buckets using a specific method before it was determined that it may have health consequences and is therefore a "significant new use" based on this knowledge instead of, say, they created a novel method to make buckets.
Maybe tomorrow they discover pulping paper with water harms sea turtles therefore pulping paper with water is a significant new use of trees.
As for the rest, I think what's tripping everyone up is that "use" isn't just any old use out in the world. The Code of Federal Regulations defines in great and painful detail what kinds of uses are subject to regulation: see 40 CFR Part 721, subpart B (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/part-721/subpart-B).
Manufacturers have to submit a notice of the uses they are putting the chemicals to. That gets reviewed by EPA. If EPA approves, that use (or the corresponding part in 40 CFR 720) is added to the chemical's listing in subpart E (see https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/part-721/subpart-E). But if EPA finds out that a chemical is being used in practice in a way that matches subpart B, but isn't listed in subpart E because no one sent the required notifications, they can take various actions to force compliance (under various penalties). When the manufacturer complies and submits the appropriate notifications, the use gets added to the chemical listing in subpart E.
Were the drafters incompetent? Is it some kind of con where they deliberately pass a law that appears to say one thing but actually says something else?
Honestly, as a non-American this seems bizarre.
>the conservative fifth circuit court of appeals court overturned the ban. The judges did not deny the containers’ health risks, but said the EPA could not regulate the buckets under the statute it used.
>The rule requires companies to alert the EPA if a new industrial process creates hazardous chemicals. Inhance has produced the containers for decades and argued that its process is not new, so it is not subject to the regulations. The EPA argued that it only became aware that Inhance’s process created PFOA in 2020, so it could be regulated as a new use, but the court disagreed.
>The fifth circuit judges wrote that the EPA would have to regulate the containers under Section 6 of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which the judges and Inhance claim would require the EPA to take into account the economic impact on Inhance.
I agree with this ruling, laws should be enforced as-written by Executive Branch departments and agencies such as the EPA. Rewriting laws is the job of the Legislative Branch.
I think you're misunderstanding something.
Inhance used (and uses) their fluorination process "for decades", but the fact it generated PFOA only became known in 2020 (edit: article is wrong; was cited by EPA in 2022).
Because the law states "new" use, the court threw out the EPA's "we found PFOA coming out of this in 2020 (edit: 2022, see above edit), this is new use" argument as hogwash. I agree with this ruling, because I presume this is all English.
If government wants to ban something there should be reasonable path followed.
>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Pursuit of happiness includes having the right to try running a business and making it successful.
And from the Constitution, its preamble:
>We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The establishment of justice, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty by the people for the people means the government cannot prohibit someone from running a business without following due process and citing due causes.
And as a catch-all, from the Ninth Amendment:
>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
That doesn't mean the right to inconvenience or potentially harm others in order for you to "pursue" something.
And also, corporations are legal entities. People are granted the right to pursue happiness, not corporations.
As for your other remarks, coming back to the predominant point: "Your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins."
>In response to growing concerns about PFAS, the EPA proposed a new SNUR in January 2015, “designating as a significant new use manufacturing . . . or processing of an identified subset of [PFAS] for any use that will not be ongoing after December 31, 2015, and all other [PFAS] for which there are currently no ongoing uses.” 80 Fed. Reg. 2885 (Jan. 21, 2015). Under the SNUR section entitled “Does this action apply to me?” the EPA included a non-exhaustive list of industries that might be affected by the SNUR. Id. at 2886. Those industries included fiber, yarn, and thread mills; carpet and rug mills; home furnishing merchant wholesalers; carpet and upholstery cleaning services; and chemical manufacturing and petroleum refineries. Id. Notably, the fluorination industry was missing from the list, as was any industry with the same North American Industry Classification Code4 as the fluorination industry. See id. The proposed rule also made clear that the SNUR would apply only to “any use not ongoing as of the date on which this proposed rule is published.” Id.
>In July 2020, the EPA promulgated the final SNUR. 85 Fed. Reg. 45109 (July 27, 2020). Like the proposed rule, it included a list of industries that might be affected by the SNUR. Id. at 45110. That list included other industries in addition to those already stated in the proposed rule, but it still did not include the fluorination industry. See id. The SNUR went into effect without any challenges.
So basically, the EPA specifically exempted ongoing uses as of and after 2015 which obviously includes Inhance's decades-old fluorination process. This is also consistent with the "new use" language of Section 5.
Not only that, the EPA did not include fluorination both in their 2015 and 2020 rulemaking for regulating.
>The EPA issued Inhance a Notice of Violation of the SNUR in March 2022 after confirming the presence of PFAS in a pesticide that had been stored in containers fluorinated by Inhance. Though Inhance did not stop fluorinating containers, it attempted to engage with the EPA through the SNUN process. Despite submitting SNUNs for its products, Inhance maintained that its fluorination process was not covered by the SNUR and that Inhance’s SNUNs were not “admission[s] of fact” or a concession that the SNUR was “legally applicable to the Company’s fluorination.”
>In December 2023, the EPA determined that three PFAS manufactured by Inhance presented an unreasonable risk of injury to human health and the environment and six additional PFAS manufactured by Inhance may do so. It therefore issued a Section 5(f) order for the first three PFAS, requiring Inhance to stop manufacturing and processing those PFAS. And it issued a Section 5(e) order for the remaining PFAS, requiring Inhance to stop manufacturing or processing the PFAS, “at least until Inhance completes further testing to address information gaps identified during the review.” Inhance timely petitioned this court for expedited review of the EPA’s orders.
The EPA then ordered Inhance to stop using its fluorination process in 2022 and 2023, citing PFAS, and citing regulations which exempted ongoing uses as of and after 2015 and which did not include fluorination.
Inhance for their part apparently tried to sort this out with the EPA, but appealed to the courts because that didn't work.
This is just damning. The government should not be able to "well akshually" and pull regulations out of thin air. The court is right to order the EPA to do their work properly.
Full ruling: https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-60620-CV0.pd...
The whole point of a system of rights and courts is that when the government wants to end your decades old business through administrative authority, they at least have to write a report on why, specifically — and they can’t claim that this is “new” to skip that step. That is what this ruling says.
Upholding laws and protection against government authority is also a good outcome.
Being able to hide your bullshit for a few years until it’s established being a way of avoiding a much harder process to win for you is bonkers.
Allowing businesses to create known health risks by illegally operating and then saying “well it isn’t new NOW” is idiotic and a horrible outcome.
How come there can be green teams jackbooting grow rooms but there can't be a PFAS team jackbooting factories spewing known toxic substances into the environment?
Meanwhile, DuPont, 3C and other companies spend multiple millions of dollars on lobbying, political donations and bribery to ensure favorable laws and lax regulation. See the decision from the court in TFA - the concern for business overrides concern for public health.
It isn't crazy, it's just America. White supremacy and capitalism will always be the priority.
[0]https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminal...
[1]https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2023/11/07/pfas-lobbying/
I seriously hope that your evaluation of these scenarios is based on the reality of their individual outcomes rather than “gubment bad durr”
I'm commenting on the fact that it's totally legal and feasible to do the war on drugs but when it comes time to muster that same kind of force against actual poisons being spewed into our environment all sorts of people trickle out of the woodwork to say that it's unconstitutional, infeasible, an overreach of power etc...
In the same way, if a law requires backup cameras on new cars, the law applies to new cars not to a 1990 Lincoln.
[1] https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P100LTG6.TXT?ZyActionD=Z...
If an agency wants to expand it's purview, it is the job of the legislative branch to change the law.
I'm lamenting that the laws we have and the people enforcing them seem to bias towards profits at the expense of health. That is more important to make a small count people wealthy over a large number healthy.
I’m curious your thought process on how you made that conclusion.
I’m starting to feel like I should just accept that the legal community matches how I view the world, and it’s a more relevant and powerful way to view the world.
Stage 3 is letting decades of this nonsense erode this "academic" view and saying enough is enough.
I don't care what bureaucratic legalese these assholes are guarding their motives with, it's all 100% down to money. Money is flowing here between corporations and government, and that's the ultimate incentive behind these decisions.
what I can't get behind is your version where the authority you like can do anything you like in any way. you're assuming this is an example of "corrupt bureaucrats with a history of enabling, covering up, and abetting in rampant environmental disasters" and this is copypasta for any topic where something was curbed.