Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
Just weeks after both houses of the New York State legislature finally passed an environmental-conservation moratorium on new cryptocurrency mining operations (as previously reported by ELM here: New York is Ready to Attack Crypto Mining), the Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) announced its long-awaited decision concerning the air permit renewal application by a former coal-fired …
In March, ELM posted on the burgeoning environmental conflict over plans to construct an open-pit lithium mine in Thacker Pass, Nevada — plans triggered by what has become a momentous shift away from an emissions-intensive, fossil-fuel based economy, to one powered by renewables. See: “Ranchers, Environmentalists, and Indigenous Communities Lock Arms Against Homegrown Lithium.” Precipitated …
A study conducted by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and commissioned by the Plastic Soup Foundation, has found that nearly 80 percent of meat and dairy products from farm animals contain microplastics. Released July 8, the study was conducted by the same group of researchers that found microplastics in human blood, reported by the Environmental Law …
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on June 30 a bill that aims to drastically cut single-use waste in the Golden State by shifting responsibility from consumers to the industry that produces it. The legislation, SB 54 — known also as ‘The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act’ — will apply to …
As regular readers of this blog know, we have been keeping tabs on the Supreme Court’s review of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case addressing how broadly executive agencies can interpret the legislation authorizing their activities. Today, the Supreme Court issued its opinion on the matter, holding that the “major questions” doctrine precluded …
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) — commonly known as “the Superfund” — was enacted in December 1980 in response to growing awareness of, and concern over, the catastrophic environmental impact of unregulated and largely unrestricted dumping of toxic waste into the ecosystems and communities around dump sites. Executed by the Environmental …
If you drink water, pay a water bill, or watch the news, you’ve undoubtedly heard or seen (but were likely unable to pronounce) the acronyms for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), two of the most recognized compounds within the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Known as PFAS compounds, they were used …
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 15 issued a unanimous reversal of a lower appellate court, and in which, ruling against the federal government, struck down a Department of Health and Human Services rule significantly reducing Medicare prescription reimbursements to hospitals traditionally serving low-income patients. Although the 2018 rule did not, on its face, seem …
The Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law last month, in conjunction with the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA Law, issued Driving Equity, a new reportaimed at presenting important policy solutions to make California’s switch to electric vehicles more realistic for lower income citizens. Topping their …
In a study published last week, researchers at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand identified microplastics in freshly fallen snow samples collected from 19 different sites across the Ross Island region of Antarctica. According to the authors, this finding, which is the first evidence of microplastics in Antarctic snow, “adds to the growing body …