Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
As the United States Environmental Protection Agency continues its battle with the state of California over fuel efficiency requirements for new vehicles, a new area of conflict has opened: the state of Colorado. California is the only state that has a waiver under the federal Clean Air Act to impose its own vehicle fuel standards. …
On Wednesday, January 30, 2019, the Attorney Generals of New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, along with the City of New York, joined forces to bring a lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency and its acting Administrator, Andrew Wheeler. The coalition is led by Letitia James, the newly elected Attorney …
Recently, the United States District Courts for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and the District of New Jersey almost simultaneously granted a consortium of natural gas companies the right of eminent domain to take steps towards building a pipeline connecting natural gas sources in Pennsylvania to parts of New Jersey. The opinions, which were released …
The next batch of glyphosate-related trials are scheduled to take place over the next two months. As previously reported, Monsanto (which was acquired by Bayer last year) has been mired in toxic tort litigation over its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup. The primary allegations center around whether certain exposure to glyphosate is causally related to the …
On January 1, 2019, the District of Columbia and the State of California became the latest jurisdictions to ban restaurants from offering their customers a plastic straw and other single-use plastics, including coffee stirrers. Seattle and Vancouver have similar straw bans in place and regulations are now proposed or pending in New York City, Miami …
This month, a trio of bi-partisan legislators from Michigan introduced a bill in the United States House of Representatives that would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to classify all PFAS chemicals under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund staute. The bill, introduced by Reps. …
Environmental remediation work is about to pick up steam in Florida. In his first major policy act, recently inaugurated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a broad executive order last Thursday aimed at tackling numerous water and environmental issues confronting the state. DeSantis, who was inaugurated on January 8, took office facing a number of environmental crises, including unprecedented levels of …
It’s worth noting that certain everyday products that U.S. consumers encounter frequently may still be treated with PFAS. That’s the focus of a recent study. The study, conducted by Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and Toxic-Free Future, screened various retailer’s food-contact materials (i.e., take-out containers, bakery or deli paper, single-use plates) for the presence of suspected …
A multistate coalition of Attorneys General, including California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont; and the California Air Resources Board, joined to file comments demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdraw its proposed rule delaying by four years implementation of a regulation that would reduce emissions from …
This week we continue our reporting on the state by state regulatory patch work involving per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). On Wednesday, January 2, 2019, officials in New Hampshire announced a set of proposed drinking water rules outlining Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) and Ambient Groundwater Quality Standards (AGQSS) for four PFAS compounds. The new rules …