Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
On September 15, 2021, the Biden administration announced it was rescinding the Trump administration’s guidance on the Supreme Court’s decision in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund and the Clean Water Act (CWA), § 402: National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). In County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund (590 US –, 140 S …
In early September, President Biden released a fact sheet describing steps taken by the administration to advance innovation and the use of cleaner and more sustainable fuels in the American aviation industry, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20% by 2030 and reaching a zero-carbon aviation sector by 2050. According to …
Each year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prepares Preliminary Effluent Guidelines Program Plans pursuant to 33 U.S.C. 1251, more commonly known as the Clean Water Act (CWA). The purpose of these plans is to give an overview of the EPA’s Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELG), or national standards for wastewater discharges to surface waters and municipal …
Sustainability is the new black dress in the fashion world. As the need to address climate change becomes more urgent, it is no longer fashion forward, hip, or trendy to walk the red carpet in non-durable apparel/garments. Likewise, designers and textile manufacturers who neglect to embrace the paradigm shift toward making fashion a remedy for …
On August 30, 2021, a North Carolina federal court dismissed a Clean Air Act citizen-group lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club (plaintiffs) against defendant University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) for certain violations of its Title-V permit, which comprehensively regulates a particular facility’s emission sources. In granting …
As we previously reported, the U.S. EPA recently issued its ban on the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos. Chlorpyrifos has been widely used in food crop agriculture since the late 1960s. Unlike for the glyphosate-based pesticide commonly sold under the brand name Roundup®, most residential uses of chlorpyrifos were banned in 2001. However, it was …
On August 18, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a pre-publication notice of a final rule banning the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on food in order to better protect human health. Chlorpyrifos is an insecticide used for a number of agricultural and non-food applications. It has been linked to numerous health risks including …
In 2013, New York State set course to become a national leader in clean energy. Later declaring a mission to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030, New York developed an aggressive and robust plan to radically change energy production, transportation, and consumption in the state. New York dedicated itself to upgrading its energy infrastructure, …
On Aug. 3, 2021, Chief U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson rejected the effort to prevent hydraulic fracturing (fracking)—the method of extracting oil and natural gas by injecting high-pressure fluid into subterranean rock formations—near archeological and cultural sites in the Mancos Shale geological formation in New Mexico, determining that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) …
Ethylene oxide (EtO) is a chemical long used to sterilize products that cannot be sterilized with steam, such as medical equipment and surgical devices. One of 187 hazardous air pollutants that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulates, EtO has been shown to cause various cancers when inhaled over time. In December 2016, the EPA concluded …