On June 27, 2024 the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) granted emergency applications by several states seeking a stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) Good Neighbor Plan pending judicial review. The Good Neighbor Plan stems from the EPA’s interpretation of ozone pollution requirements in the Clean Air Act requiring “upwind” states to…
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On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024). The underlying controversy related to details of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (“MSA”), which was implemented to prevent depletion of fishery resources off the coasts of the United States. The National Marine Fisheries…
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On April 12, 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling revoking the State of Florida’s permitting authority under the Clean Water Act. In Center For Biological Diversity v. Regan, the district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of the environmental group plaintiffs, holding that Florida’s Department of…
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On April 10, 2024 the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) finalized drinking water regulations for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”). The EPA expects that the regulations will prevent PFAS exposure in drinking water for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious PFAS-attributable diseases. The finalized EPA regulations establish…
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On February 8, 2024, the EPA proposed changes to regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to add nine PFAS compounds, “their salts, and their structural isomers . . .” to RCRA’s hazardous constituents list. The EPA promulgates a list of hazardous constituents under RCRA “comprised of chemicals that have toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic,…
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On January 17, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) heard oral arguments in the case of Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. The case involves a challenge by plaintiff Relentless to a rule issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) requiring the herring fishing industry to bear the cost of overcatch…
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On January 11,2024, the EPA issued the final version of a new significant new use rule (SNUR) applying to 329 PFAS chemicals designated as inactive on the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) Chemical Substance Inventory (the “Inventory”). A number of PFAS chemicals are already subject to SNURs. This rule omits those to avoid redundancy. The…
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Environmental groups in the United States and Europe have filed complaints against Coca Cola and other companies accusing them of “greenwashing” their environmental sustainability claims. Companies are accused of greenwashing when they make claims that something is more eco-friendly, green, or sustainable than it really is. In 2021, Earth Island Institute brought a lawsuit against…
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The vast expansion of the renewable energy sector has prompted the EPA to modify existing universal waste requirements regarding the disposal of lithium-ion batteries and expand the universal waste rule to cover photovoltaic solar panels. The universal waste program was implemented in May 1995, as a subsection of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), to…
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On October 3, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) announced it was accepting for investigation an Administrative Complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Natural Resources Council against the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (“ADEM”). The Complaint alleges that ADEM engages in racially discriminatory practices against residents in the Black Belt region…
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