The U.S. EPA says it will defend its rule designating certain PFAS as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, according to a court document filed by the Justice Department on behalf of the EPA on Wednesday. The hazardous substance designation for two types of PFAS — PFOS and PFOA — was first set last year under the Biden administration. The National Waste & Recycling Association and other groups sued the EPA in 2024 over the matter, saying the designation unfairly exposes them to liability expenses because they are “passive receivers” that do not have control over PFAS-laden materials that enter their facilities. The EPA also said it intends to develop a new rule on how it might craft any future hazardous substance designations under CERCLA, including cost considerations. “The best, most enduring solution to this issue is a statutory fix to protect passive receivers from liability, which EPA would follow to the letter of the law,” the agency said.

Forest certification is a powerful tool to combat illegal logging and to promote sustainable forest management and responsible timber trade. PEFC is calling for collaborators and donors to further develop the PEFC FOR-TRADE programme to drive ASEAN integration and development of regional value chains in forest related industries. The PEFC FOR-TRADE programme supports sustainable forest trade in the Lower Mekong and ASEAN region through certification programmes aimed at advancing nationally owned standards in sustainable forest management and chain of custody. PEFC Southeast Asia has collaborated with a range of partners in the region. More recently for example, we have been a key partner in a UN-REDD Initiative funded by NORAD, implementing a series of interventions to support Sustainable Forest Trade in the Lower Mekong Region.

The use of the PEFC framework to transfer Green House Gas (GHG) emission related data along the supply chain has been the subject of increasing interest among the bioenergy sector and other industry sectors processing forest-based materials in recent years. Key to this rising interest is the growing demand from governmental and private customers, particularly in Europe, that biomass used for energy production is from sustainable sources, such as PEFC-certified forests, and is delivered with credible and transparent information on GHG emissions linked to its production, processing and transport. In response, PEFC International has established a Task Force for the development of a voluntary mechanism for the transfer of GHG emission related data along the PEFC-certified supply chain. The objective of this newly established Task Force is to develop a set of technical requirements, which can be used as a strictly voluntary tool for data transfer.