The Washington DC Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency for standards of performance for new and future medical and hospital incinerators of infectious waste.

In 1997, EPA was able to pass the “Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emissions Guidelines for Existing Sources: Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerators”. There were subsequent successful challenges to that ruling, remanding it back to the EPA in 1999 for review.

Trade associations representing the waste-to-energy and medical waste industries challenged these new regulations in 2009. The trade groups attempted to argue that regulations were based on flawed EPA approaches for setting target emission levels. The court decided in the EPA’s favor on June 24th 2011.

The full adjudication can be seen here.

This is an interesting, and not particularly surprising case. The control of incinerator emissions, and indeed of potentially harmful emissions from any process, is of paramount importance. However, there is often some discord between science and policy and from there to regulation. This judgement will not change that, but the parties involved must make the best of it.

What is of great importance is the integrity of thre regulators, who must use their powers fairly and with transparency. A rather disingenuous approach to regulation and its application by regulators is not uncommon but must not flourish.