LATEST INSIGHTS

Flag of California
California / Emissions
Posted by:

‘Berth Control’ — California’s War on Idle Emissions

California – as part of effort to reduce the environmental impact of maritime shipping, particularly within vulnerable port-side communities – has implemented one of the most ambitious port-emission control programs to date.

California’s At-Berth Regulation (ABR), implemented in 2007, is a key environmental policy created to reduce air pollution from nonvehicular sources. Since 2014, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has enforced the ABR for container ships, reefer ships, and passenger ships, requiring the use of shore power or CARB-approved emission control/capture systems while at …

Continue Reading
Emissions / Regulations
Posted by:

Does EtO’s Recent Regulatory Battle Victory Mean It Will Win the War?

Following years of heightened concern about the dangers of exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), increased regulatory oversight, and a steady hum of litigation, in 2025 it seems like things might be changing for the beleaguered industry dependent upon this highly effective but potentially cancer-causing sterilizing gas. With a new administration in the White House, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laser focused on deregulation, and with the first defense verdict issued in an EtO case out in Colorado this past spring (covered by …

Continue Reading
Smoke emerging from chimneys
Climate Change
Posted by:

What in the World?! ICJ Issues Landmark Opinion on Climate Change

In a unanimous decision on July 23, 2025, the fifteen judges on the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (“ICJ”), also known as the “World Court,” concluded that the production and consumption of fossil fuels “may constitute an internationally wrongful act attributable to that state.” The opinion also stated that limiting global warming to 1.5C should be considered the “primary temperature goal” for nations and, to achieve it, they are obliged to make “adequate contributions.”

By way of background, this case was initiated by a …

Continue Reading
EPA Offices, Washington DC
EPA
Posted by:

EPA Announces Plan to Eliminate its Office of Research and Development

The Environmental Protection Agency announced July 18 it would continue workforce reductions through the elimination of its Office of Research and Development, which provides the independent scientific research that underpins nearly all the agency’s policies and regulations.

For decades, the science office has analyzed a multitude of risks, including the impacts of hazardous chemicals, hydraulic fracking, contamination to public water supplies, and wildfire smoke. Industrial manufacturers have historically been critical of the research by the Office of Research and Development because it frequently was used …

Continue Reading
blurred river
PFOA / Settlements
Posted by:

DuPont Agrees to $27M Settlement in Hoosick Falls PFOA Contamination Lawsuit

Earlier this month, chemical maker DuPont agreed to a $27 million settlement to resolve the Hoosick Falls class action, which involved allegations of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) contamination of the upstate New York village’s water supply.

In February 2016, class action, Baker, et al. v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., et al, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York regarding a Teflon fabric coating facility in Hoosick Falls. The class, which involves hundreds of plaintiffs, alleged that …

Continue Reading
Scientist working with chemicals for research in a lab
PFAS
Posted by:

Study Claims PFAS Can be Destroyed and Converted into Fluorochemicals with Finite Phosphate Saved for Reuse

Do you want to destroy PFAS? But why stop there? Continue on to convert them into high value fluorochemicals, and recover and reuse the phosphate salts.

That’s what one new study claims it can do.

The authors reacted PFAS with potassium phosphate salts under solvent-free mechanochemical conditions — a mineralization process enabling fluorine recovery as KF (potassium fluoride) and K2PO3F (potassium fluorophosphate) for fluorination chemistry.

The phosphate salts can be recovered for reuse, implying no detrimental impact on the phosphorus cycle. Therefore, the authors say “PFASs …

Continue Reading
Smoke-stacks-view-from-above
Emissions / EPA
Posted by:

EPA Grants Coke Plants Breathing Room on Emissions Requirements

The EPA on July 2 issued a finalized interim rule, published six days later in the Federal Register, which delays implementation of certain National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) requirements for coke oven manufacturing facilities.

According to the EPA, hazardous air pollutants (HAP) emitted from these coke oven manufacturing facilities can include benzene, mercury, lead and arsenic. Coke at these facilities is produced using coal and coke-oven batteries (which is a group of connected coke ovens). From there, coke in blast furnaces then …

Continue Reading
Maine state flags and the American flag waving in the wind on a clear day
Legislation / Maine
Posted by:

Support is Split as Maine’s Governor Gives State’s Foundational Packaging EPR Law a Modern Makeover

Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation, also known as EPR laws, is a policy-based approach that holds producers accountable for the entire lifecycle of their products, particularly for take-back, recycling, and final disposal. Although various other countries have implemented EPR legislation as early as the 1990s, its adoption in the U.S. has been considerably slow, fragmented, and entirely state driven.

In July 2021, Maine pathed the way for packaging EPR legislation in the U.S. when it passed the bill known as LD 1541, which established a …

Continue Reading
Recyclable plastic materials stacked at waste sorting plant and sky
Legislation / New York
Posted by:

NY Packaging Legislation Gets Wrapped up in Red Tape Again

Last month, the New York State Assembly demurred from taking up a vote for the second time on the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (“PRRIA”). The PRRIA was designed to cause a restructuring of the life cycle of packaging within the state by fundamentally shifting the burden of handling packaging waste from municipalities and consumers to the corporations manufacturing them in the first place.

As a threshold matter, the PRRIA was intended to reduce plastic packaging by 30 percent within the next 12 years, …

Continue Reading
Nuclear Plant
New York / Nuclear Power Plants
Posted by:

New York State Goes Nuclear

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced June 25 that she is directing New York Power Authority to add at least one gigawatt of new nuclear power generation by building a zero-emission nuclear power plant somewhere in upstate New York.

This announcement, four years after the 2021 closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant due to safety concerns pertaining to nuclear waste disposal, came as a surprise to many who expected the governor to, instead, recommend cap-and-invest regulations pursuant to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection …

Continue Reading