Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
On the first day of the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, more commonly referred to as COP28, delegates reached a landmark agreement to formerly create a Loss and Damage Fund, a rescue and rehabilitation effort to support especially vulnerable countries dealing with the irreversible and costly effects of climate change. First …
Last week, the California Supreme Court, in a rare unanimous ruling, struck down a Monterey County voter-approved local initiative that would have banned oil and gas drilling and imposed severe restrictions on oil and gas development in the county. In the court’s view, the local ordinance is preempted by state law and was struck down. …
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency continues its trend of limiting executive agencies, such as EPA, from expanding their authority when faced with statutory ambiguity — ambiguity such agencies have used to extend their reach to places and activities over which Congress has not given them express jurisdiction. Sackett …
The Environmental Protection Agency’s and Army Corps of Engineers’ “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’” (WOTUS) rule became final on March 20, 2023. However, the rule is facing challenges from nearly every conceivable angle. Implementation of the rule has already been halted in 24 states, the rule is facing disruption by the U.S. …
After years of delays – largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic – on April 11, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally issued two proposals that would reduce ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions affecting fence-line communities neighboring EtO sterilization facilities and establish direct protections for facility employees likely to be regularly exposed to this sterilizing chemical. …
It has been a rough year for cryptocurrency mining. Just a year ago, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing addressing the environmental effects of cryptocurrency mining, with a particular focus on the process’s use of energy and resulting high rates of emissions (covered by ELM here), but with a noticeable bent of optimism …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Last week, through the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) publication of a final rule at the close of phase one of a two-phase rulemaking process, the Biden administration began its efforts to reverse the prior administration’s reworking of the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Originally signed into law by President Richard Nixon …