Aaron has been actively involved in hazardous waste regulatory issues since the beginning of the U.S. federal regulatory program under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1980. He started in this area as a consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the development of foundational RCRA regulations, such as the Toxicity Characteristic used to identify hazardous wastes, the Small Quantity Generator (SQG) rule, and the original Hazardous Waste Export rule. He also worked on these and other environmental issues as a legal analyst in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before joining B&D.

Examples of his work in this area since entering private practice are provided below. Outcomes in individual matters may vary significantly, depending on the facts and other factors.

Advocacy

Over the years, Aaron has helped develop and implement successful advocacy strategies for clients on countless RCRA rulemakings, and on many related hazardous waste rulemakings at the state level and outside the U.S. For example:

• On behalf of a large retail industry trade association, Aaron argued for and helped convince EPA not to adopt a proposed recordkeeping requirement for non-hazardous wastes that was projected to cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
• For the same trade association, he was instrumental in obtaining an exclusion from the definition of hazardous waste for nicotine replacement therapies (e.g., gums and lozenges) and reduced “universal waste” requirements for aerosol cans, both of which were estimated to save the retail industry tens of millions of dollars annually.
• He was a key player in advocating on behalf of the iron and steel industry for RCRA exclusions for certain residues from the recycling of electric arc furnace (EAF) dust and coke by-products.
• For the electronics industry, he played a lead role in obtaining exclusions or exemptions for shredded circuit boards and cathode ray tubes (CRTs) destined for recycling.
• He helped develop extensive comments on a proposal by the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to overhaul that country’s definition of hazardous waste, which resulted in considerable changes in the final rule.

Agency Rulemaking Challenges

Aaron played a key role in drafting the briefs in successful court challenges to major elements of EPA's definition of hazardous waste, including: the "mixture" and "derived-from" rules; several hazardous waste listings; and the Toxicity Characteristic as it applies to mineral processing wastes. He was also instrumental in blocking efforts by a national environmental organization to overturn a state’s interpretation of its regulations, which would have classified most municipal wastewater treatment sludges in the state as hazardous wastes.

Enforcement Action Defense

Aaron has had considerable success defending clients in hazardous waste enforcement actions initiated by EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice, or their state counterparts. These efforts have often resulted in highly favorable settlements, withdrawal of allegations, or even rejection of government claims by courts. For example:

• In the seminal case on the scope of the RCRA Manufacturing Process Unit (MPU) Exemption -- which establishes the boundary where manufacturing ends and waste management begins -- Aaron spearheaded the team that convinced an EPA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to reject the Agency’s cramped view of the exemption. 
• In one of the first cases brought by EPA as part of a nationwide enforcement initiative under the RCRA “Subparts AA, BB, and CC” air emission requirements, he convinced the Agency to withdraw its Complaint against a specialty chemical company in its entirety.
• He successfully negotiated a greater than 90 percent reduction in proposed penalties in a multimillion-dollar enforcement action involving air emissions and process residuals at a cement plant that burned hazardous wastes as fuel.
• He obtained a highly favorable settlement in a path-breaking enforcement case against a U.S. government complex that raised novel constitutional and homeland security issues.

Regulatory Counseling

For countless clients across a wide range of industries, as well as numerous government entities that generate hazardous wastes, Aaron has provided advice on the applicability of the regulations, identified strategies for minimizing regulatory burdens, developed practical compliance tools, helped navigate through the permitting process, and obtained critical regulatory variances. For example:

• For several leading chemical companies, he has performed comprehensive reviews of which materials and equipment involved in various production processes are subject to RCRA regulation, and identified potential strategies for modifying operations to reduce regulatory requirements. 
• He regularly counsels clients on regulatory obligations under the rules for hazardous waste generators, transporters, and treatment, storage, or disposal facilities (TSDFs).
• He served as the sole attorney on a panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences to advise the U.S. Army on closure of the two facilities used to destroy the nation’s remaining stockpile of chemical weapons.
• He convinced a state to abandon plans to permit various tanks as hazardous waste storage units on the ground that they qualified for RCRA exemptions such as the Wastewater Treatment Unit (WWTU) Exemption.
• He has prepared successful petitions for variances from the definition of solid waste for “partially reclaimed materials” from the initial steps of recycling metal-bearing wastes.
• He obtained “treatability variances” from otherwise applicable treatment standards under the RCRA Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) program for remediation wastes containing a wide range of organic and inorganic hazardous constituents.

International Transboundary Waste Issues

Aaron frequently assists clients in determining how to ship wastes and recyclable materials between countries in accordance with the requirements of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (Basel Convention) and related bilateral/multinational agreements (e.g., the OECD Council Decision on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Wastes Destined for Recovery Operations, and U.S. bilateral agreements with Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Malaysia, and the Philippines) As part of these efforts, he has developed a working knowledge of the relevant national hazardous waste programs in countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia/Pacific, and Africa. He has also advised on the management of wastes generated in Antarctica and on vessels in international waters.