Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
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 …
The legendary singer/songwriter Sam Cooke may have intended for his 1964 anthem, “A Change is Gonna Come,” to be a protest song to surreptitiously fuel the civil rights movement and its pursuit of social justice, but little did he know the soulful R&B melody may realize its revival in the Biden administration as the U.S. Environmental Agency’s (EPA’s) new battle cry …
On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision in Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, 605 U.S. ___ (2025), authored by Justice Kavanaugh with Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito dissenting. The case concerned the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) approval of a 40-year license for Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to store spent nuclear …
On July 25, the District Court for the Northern District of New York in Mulhern Gas Co. v. Mosely ruled that New York has the power to enact the All-Electric Building Act (AEBA). The decision clears the way for the AEBA to take effect in 2026, making New York the first state to require (most) …
Following years of heightened concern about the dangers of exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), increased regulatory oversight, and a steady hum of litigation, in 2025 it seems like things might be changing for the beleaguered industry dependent upon this highly effective but potentially cancer-causing sterilizing gas. With a new administration in the White House, a U.S. …
On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions that clarify a deceptively simple question under the Clean Air Act: Where should lawsuits challenging EPA actions be filed? The rulings – EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining LLC and Oklahoma et al. v. EPA – do not change the substance of environmental law, but they do shape …
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agencies preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under the guidance of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) need only to consider the environmental effects of the “project at hand” and not those that are “separate in time and place.” The 8-0 decision handed down May 29 in Seven Cnty. …
In the past couple of years, multiple states across the nation have made various attempts to attract cryptocurrency mining centers at which the virtual currency is “mined” on a colossal scale — a process requiring a significant amount of energy — through legislation and business and tax incentives (covered extensively by ELM, including here and here). After what …
On January 31 — in Marin Audubon Society et al. v. FAA et al. — the D.C. Circuit Court declined petitions for en banc review of a panel’s November 2024 ruling that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) does not have the legal authority to promulgate regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act …
SCOTUS Declines to Review EPA’s Authority on California’s Vehicle Emission Standards In a significant development for environmental law and state autonomy, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recently declined to review whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to grant California a waiver to set its own greenhouse gas (GHG) …