Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
The World Health Organization recently released for public comment its first document evaluating PFAS: “PFOS and PFOA in Drinking-water, Background document for development of WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality.” According to WHO, one of its primary goals is that “all people, whatever their stage of development and their social and economic conditions, have the right …
The Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) accepted for investigation an administrative complaint filed against the Mississippi Department of Health (MDH) and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) based on their role in the City of Jackson, Mississippi’s ongoing water crisis. This is an investigation opened by the EPA’s new Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (“OEJECR.”). The agency …
Last week, four environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to assess the hard-data consequences of pesticides in its approval process. Back in 1987, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) created lists of pesticides, dividing inert ingredients into four categories based on their toxicological concern; List 1-Inerts of toxicological concern, List 2-Potentially toxic …
Lawmakers from both parties, in both houses of Congress, have proposed bills intended to speed up forest-management projects that reduce wildfire fuels, like brush and small trees, which can cause large-scale fires of the sort seen in Western states over the past few years. The House has already passed the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency …
As a follow up to one of our team’s ELM articles earlier this month, (here), the EPA launched a brand-new environmental justice office signaling, for the first time, that clean air, clean water, and environmental justice are a birthright to be protected by the federal government- regardless of privilege, socio-economic status, or geographic location. During his announcement of …
Just last week, on October 3, 2022, Sackett v. EPA found itself once again before the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments, its first appearance at SCOTUS having been a decade before. In January 2022, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear Sackett for a second time following remand, the petitioner Sacketts had amended their …
Oil and gas manufacturers have long relied on a process known as “flaring” to limit the venting of natural gas from their refineries. Specifically, flaring is the process of burning natural gas escaping from oil and gas wells and aims at combusting the powerful greenhouse gas methane to minimize its emission. Flares are designed to eliminate 98% of the …
On September 24, 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the establishment of a new office dedicated to advancing civil rights and environmental justice. The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR) was created through the merger of three existing internal programs: the Office of Environmental Justice, the External Civil Rights Compliance Office, and …
Paraquat dichloride is a synthetic chemical compound that has been used as an active ingredient in herbicide products sold in the United States since the mid-1960s. One of the most commonly used herbicides in the U.S., it has been described as “a fast-acting, non-selective herbicide used in an array of agricultural and other settings” … …
On September 19, 2022, a Cook County (Illinois) jury awarded $363 million to 70-year-old plaintiff Susan Kamuda in the first of many lawsuits against industrial sterilization company Sterigenics. These lawsuits accuse the company of a reckless, decades-long pollution of Willowbrook, Illinois with ethylene oxide. The jury in this case went beyond the damages requested by …