Appellate court judges in a unanimous June 2 ruling have rejected an energy sector challenge over EPA's Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) waiver for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) after finding industry groups lacks legal standing to sue because they can only show "speculative concerns" over the rule's potential harms. The decision by the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to scrap the case over standing - a threshold requirement for pursuing litigation - means the court does not address the merits of industry's challenge to the waiver. As a result, the decision does not weigh in on whether carbon dioxide (CO2) that is sequestered qualifies as a solid waste under RCRA, and also does not address the merits of the waiver. The decision is available on InsideEPA.com. Seepage 2 for details. (Doc. ID: 181864) The suit, Carbon Sequestration Council (CSC), et al. v. EPA, challenged the agency's Jan. 3, 2014, rule that exempts CCS activities injecting CO2 underground from RCRA subtitle C hazardous waste rules if they obtain Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) Class VI permits - a novel permitting category EPA created in 2010 for CCS.
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