Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s and Army Corps of Engineers’ “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’”(WOTUS) rule will become final on March 20. This latest iteration codifies the agencies’ pre-2015 approach to defining WOTUS and attempts to establish a bridge between the interpretations offered by the prior two administrations. In particular, the rule’s preamble …
Lawyers at the environmental law firm ClientEarth earlier this month personally sued the directors of one of the largest oil producers in a derivative action for their alleged failure to manage material and foreseeable climate risks. ClientEarth filed the action at the High Court of Justice in England and Wales, alleging breach of UK company law. In total, 11 of the …
“Clean beauty” has taken over the cosmetics industry in the past several years, and while there is no official definition of the term, it is generally understood to refer to cosmetic products free from chemicals such as phthalates, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, and parabens, which is the term used for a group of preservatives used in …
The EPA announced Monday the availability of $2 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to address emerging contaminants such as Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in drinking water across the country. This investment, allocated to states and territories, will be made available to communities as grants through EPA’s Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities (EC-SDC) Grant …
In 2015, California’s former governor Edmund Brown Jr. set methane emissions-reduction targets for the state. Senate Bill 1383 requires that California reduce organic waste disposal 75 percent by the year 2025. Although most Californians did not begin to understand what these targets meant, 2022 marked the beginning of new waste disposal requirements for many statewide. These requirements …
With names like “boiler slag” and “bottom ash,” it’s no wonder that anyone who has ever heard of coal ash, or the coal combustion residuals (CCRs) produced from burning coal, assumes they are the basest forms of pollution. And they’re not entirely wrong; bottom ash is the burn-up matter that is too large to be …
The European Union plans to push back against the clean-tech tax breaks provided in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) by easing subsidy rules and creating a new source of money to help member states compete with the United States. Some EU members see aspects of the IRA as discriminatory, designed to benefit U.S. climate tech …
The Environmental Protection Agency recently published a Cumulative Impacts Addendum (“Addendum”) to its Legal Tools to Advance Environmental Justice (“EJ Legal Tools”), issued in May 2022. This Addendum builds on the cumulative impacts discussion in the EJ Legal Tools and provides additional detail and analysis regarding the EPA’s legal authority to address cumulative impacts affecting …
Right on the heels of the eye-popping $408 million settlement between a major commercial sterilizer and plaintiffs claiming injuries resulting from exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO) emitted from the company’s Illinois facility (covered by ELM here), the company now faces two different legal actions initiated by two new groups of plaintiffs but similarly stemming from …
Biden administration officials announced on December 20, 2022, that the U.S. Postal Service intends to purchase over 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, which would create one of the nation’s largest electric fleets in an effort to fight climate change. To reach this goal, the USPS announced that it plans to purchase 60,000 so-called “Next Generation …