Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
After much anticipation, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its final rule this week aimed at cutting methane emissions as well as strengthening and updating greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reporting for the oil and gas industries. Methane is a “super pollutant” that is many times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane also contributes to approximately one …
On the final day of April 2024, a week and a half after Earth Day, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized a rule intended to simplify and modernize the federal environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). A pillar of environmental law passed in …
Last month, our readers will recall that we reported on some pushback raised regarding the new climate disclosure rules promulgated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requiring publicly traded registrants to provide certain climate-related information in future registration documents and annual reports (the “Final Rules”). As SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in a press …
Attorneys General from 23 states have filed a petition for rulemaking with the Environmental Protection Agency demanding the agency stop using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when regulating pollution. The petition, the main signatory of which is Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, comes on the heels of a decision in Louisiana …
As our readers are likely familiar from our past blog posts here, here and here, in September 2022, EPA proposed to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under section 102(a) of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Now, EPA has made it final: the agency has designated perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid …
Fine particle pollution – also known as soot – is a cause of respiratory disease, increased asthma symptoms, cancer, and cardiovascular dysfunction. Incomplete combustion of organic materials such as wood, fuel oil, plastics, and household refuse create soot – which is released from smokestacks, vehicle exhaust, wildfires, agricultural work and some forms of cooking. Soot …
Stationary combustion turbines, often referred to as gas turbines, are used to generate high volumes of electricity at power stations, dams, and industrial centers. Despite their size, noise, and prodigious output, these engines are simple, with a design that dates, at least in concept, all the way back to 150 BC when a Greek inventor …
Regulations — and executive agencies’ interpretation of those regulations — can make or break companies, and even entire industries. For decades now, the judiciary’s approach to administrative review, found in the landmark 1984 case Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, largely deferred to government agencies’ interpretation of their governing statutes on the grounds …
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced April 9 a set of final rules under sections 111 and 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to significantly reduce toxic air pollution from more than 200 chemical plants in the United States. The plants affected make products such as synthetic organic chemicals, plastics, paints, synthetic fabrics, pesticides, …
It all started in the early 40’s, when the smog was so bad in California that visibility was measured in city blocks, and people suffered from nausea, stinging eyes, and difficulty breathing. By the 50’s, the California government had shut down some refineries and smoke-stack power plants, but the smog persisted. Finally, chemists discovered that …