Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 26 launched its first agencywide PFAS Technology, Evaluation, Coordination, and Harmonization (PFAS TECH) strategy, which it describes as an effort to “catapult technology innovation on PFAS” while giving communities practical tools, funding, and technical assistance for local PFAS problems. EPA has committed to carrying out the strategy actions across …
Readers of the Environmental Law Monitor have followed methylene chloride (MC), the solvent best known for its use in paint stripping, through nearly every stage of its modern regulatory life. In “Partially Stripped,” we examined EPA’s decision to retreat from a proposed complete ban and instead prohibit only consumer paint-stripper uses. In “9th Circuit: EPA’s …
The Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 5 published its final FY 2027 Evidence Plan, outlining how the agency will leverage emerging technology to modernize its regulatory framework. Authorized by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, the plan notably replaces the term “Artificial Intelligence” from its initial draft with “Super Intelligence” (SI), which is …
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 25 decided Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, 146 S. Ct. 2001 (2026), holding that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 7 U.S.C. § 136v(b), expressly preempts a state-law failure-to-warn claim that would require a cancer warning on a pesticide label that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved …
A coalition of more than 20 states and several cities led by New York Attorney General Letitia James lodged a petition on Oct. 1 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent repeal of greenhouse gas-emission limits for coal-and-gas-fired power plants (covered by Goldberg Segalla’s ELM here: …
Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a new scientific study with the goal of improving its understanding of what pollutants may be present in drinking water. The research will go beyond traditional testing methods to screen for a broad array of pollutants, including pharmaceuticals, PFAS, and more than 1,000 other potential contaminants. …
This past Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized the repeal of rules, established during the prior administration of President Joe Biden that limited greenhouse gas emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants. The repeal eliminates virtually all the greenhouse gas standards established in April 2024 under the Clean Air Act. EPA Administration Lee Zeldin …
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Aug. 18 upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 designation of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as “hazardous substances” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. EPA, No. …
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently held that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) likely improperly froze roughly $20 billion in clean energy grants and thus, repealed an injunction that kept the funds in place while the validity of the grants is contested in court. By way of background, in 2024, the …
Ethylene oxide is a colorless, typically odorless, flammable gas used to make other chemicals, plastic, and to sterilize certain products. Commercial sterilization includes processes that use ethylene oxide — also known as EtO — to sterilize or fumigate materials such as medical equipment and supplies, spices, and other miscellaneous items. This process is designed to eliminate …