Hazardous-waste loophole approved

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a new regulation Friday exempting an estimated 118,500 tons of hazardous waste annually from strict federal incineration controls, and it separately exempted factory farms from a requirement to report hazardous air pollution to the federal government.

The two rules are among dozens of regulations being issued during the final weeks of the Bush administration.

The hazardous-waste exemption was proposed in June 2007 and approved by the White House three weeks after the presidential election.

The exemption allows companies that create hazardous chemical wastes in industrial processes to burn them as fuel in their own incinerators, instead of paying highly regulated incineration firms to destroy them.

Susan Bodine, the EPA’s assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response, said in a statement that the rule eliminated unnecessary regulation and promoted “energy recovery” without sacrificing human health or the environment.

But Ben Dunham, associate legislative counsel for the nonprofit advocacy group Earthjustice, said that “everything about this rule-making was flawed,” including “the logic that says, ‘If you can burn it, it’s not a hazardous waste.’ ”