While various States have enacted various regulations covering a wide variety of differing standards over the years, the EPA never created a national standard for remedial or drinking water levels. Finally, after decades of considering proposals and counter proposals, the EPA made a “final” determination in July 2020 during the Trump administration that perchlorate was […]
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On April 3, 2023, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) published a proposed rule to promote the conservation of the 245 million acres of public lands it manages. The proposal purports to advance “BLM’s mission to manage the public lands for multiple use and sustained yield by prioritizing the health and resilience of ecosystems across […]
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by Mitchell J. Klein Environmental practitioners are well aware of the astonishing breadth and scope of the impacts resulting from the investigations into the ubiquitous presence of the so-called “forever chemicals”, including the significant efforts being expended at both the State and Federal level on regulating their use and establishing remedial standards. But PRPs, landowners, […]
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by John W. Andrews On June 8, 2022, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued formal guidance[1] describing BLM’s policy for authorizing use of federal public lands for site characterization, injection, and geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) for carbon capture and storage (CCS). BLM Instruction Memorandum 2022-041 (IM 2022-041) […]
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by Luke Narducci and Amanda Reeve On May 5, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (“USDOJ”) announced the launch of a new comprehensive environmental justice (“EJ”) strategy. The three-prong strategy, as laid out by the U.S. Attorney General in an internal memorandum, includes: Supplemental Environmental Projects (“SEPs”) are projects that are undertaken by an […]
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by John Habib The United Nations Human Rights Council passed Resolution 48/13 in October 2021. The Resolution recognizes as a human right a person’s access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Non-governmental organizations are now pushing the United Nations General Assembly to formally adopt Resolution 48/13. The United States did not take part in […]
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by Patrick J. Paul On Wednesday, April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision stayed a Northern District of California Court decision that both remanded and vacated EPA Trump-era rules regarding water quality certification of projects under Clean Water Act Section 401. The California District Court in 2021 in In re Clean Water […]
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by Mitchell J. Klein In a memo to agency leadership sent earlier this month, EPA Administrator Michael Regan rescinded practices that were instituted by one of his Trump-era predecessors, Scott Pruitt, to eliminate what has been referred to by some as “sue and settle” tactics. While the settlement of lawsuits is, of course, a common […]
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by Raymond S. Heyman Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the forefront the key role that energy policy plays in international relations. Many countries sympathetic to Ukraine, but not wanting to escalate the conflict by sending troops, have discussed or actually imposed economic sanctions on Russia. One obvious target area for sanctions is Russian […]
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by Michael C. Ford “Sackett” may be poised to become a part of the Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdictional lexicon, joining the likes of Rapanos, significant nexus, relatively permanent, and Solid Waste Agency of Cook County, on the tip of every Clean Water Act practitioner’s tongue. In a surprise move, the Supreme Court of the […]
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