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.
Because the law states "new" use, the court threw out the EPA's "we found PFOA coming out of this in 2020, this is new use" argument as hogwash. I agree with this ruling, because I presume this is all English.
>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...
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."
>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.