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by Mitchell J. Klein In a memo to agency leadership sent earlier this month, EPA Administrator Michael Regan rescinded practices that were instituted by one of his Trump-era predecessors, Scott Pruitt, to eliminate what has been referred to by some as “sue and settle” tactics.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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by Patrick J. Paul The federal Clean Water Act created federal jurisdiction over “navigable waters” defined as “waters of the United States” (WOTUS). Since becoming law in 1972, debate over what is, and is not, WOTUS has been robust. The Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Rapanos v. U.S. epitomized the challenges in finding consensus on […]
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by Patrick J. Paul On January 19, 2021, the last full day of President Trump’s tenure at the White House, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals essentially said “good riddance” to Trump’s “ACE” (the Affordable Clean Energy Rule) in American Lung Association v. EPA, No. 19-1140 (D.C. Cir. 2021). More to the point, the D.C. […]
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by Mitchell J. Klein The Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed Aug. 10, contains a provision that would bring back an excise tax that expired in 1995 on a lengthy list of raw chemicals. House Democrats also want it to cover crude oil. In addition to this new tax stream, the House has already approved […]
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by Amanda A. Reeve Arizona’s Senior U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema is credited as being instrumental in negotiating the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, H.R. 3684, entitled “Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America Act (“INVEST in America Act”), as amended, that passed with bipartisan support (69-30) in the U.S. Senate on […]
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