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Maine State Flag in Blue Sky
Legislation / Maine
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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 …

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Recyclable plastic materials stacked at waste sorting plant and sky
Legislation / New York
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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, …

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Nuclear Plant
New York / Nuclear Power Plants
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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 …

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Spring meadow and blue sky over grass field, countryside landscape
NEPA / Regulations
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Agencies Take Major Federal Action Significantly Affecting NEPA’s Future

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) applies to a major federal action that significantly affects the quality of the human environment. On June 30, several federal agencies took their own federal action which will likely have significant impacts in how NEPA is implemented in the future.

In particular, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Department of Agriculture (DOA), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Interior (DOI) and Department of Transportation (DOT) revoked their regulations which govern how these agencies handle their review of proposed projects under …

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Flatten paper carton boxes
Legislation / New York
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New York State Legislature Fails Again to Pass Extended Producer Responsibility Legislation

Influenced by laws in existence in multiple states, including California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington, the New York State Legislature has examined in recent years extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation intended to hold producers accountable for managing their packaging at the end of life. 

The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (PRRIA), aka A1749, was proposed to create an EPR program for packaging.

PRRIA would:

  • Reduce plastic packaging by 30 percent incrementally over 12 years.
  • Require that by 2052 all packaging
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dark sky at sunset time, yellow color in the sky from the sun, pipes with smoke during operation and burning fuel - logs or coal
Clean Air Act
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Venue Matters: Supreme Court Clarifies Where Clean Air Act Cases Belong

On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions that clarify a deceptively simple question under the Clean Air Act: Where should lawsuits challenging EPA actions be filed?

The rulings – EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining LLC and Oklahoma et al. v. EPA – do not change the substance of environmental law, but they do shape how and where that law gets litigated. And that matters.

At the heart of both cases is a venue provision in the Clean Air Act, which …

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Freight train on the railroad at sunrise. Aerial view
NEPA
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Supreme Court Cuts Down ‘Judicial Oak’ of NEPA; Energy and Infrastructure Developments Projected to Increase

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agencies preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under the guidance of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) need only to consider the environmental effects of the “project at hand” and not those that are “separate in time and place.” 

The 8-0 decision handed down May 29 in Seven Cnty. Infrastructure Coal. v. Eagle County — of which Justice Gorsuch did not take part — further held that courts should “defer to an agency’s reasonable choices regarding the scope and …

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Large coal fired power plant with smoking chimneys
EPA / Regulations
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New Proposed Rules Would Repeal Certain Regulations on Power Plants, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards

The Trump administration is proposing two repeals: one on regulations of power plants and the other on certain amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

The administration believes these regulations have “imposed massive costs on coal-, oil-, and gas-fired power plants, raising the cost of living for American families, imperiling the reliability of our electric grid, and limiting American energy prosperity.”

First: EPA is proposing to repeal all “greenhouse gas” emissions standards for the power sector under Section 111 of the Clean …

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Server room with big data
Crypto
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Will Riding the Crypto Mining Wave Only Lead to Wipeout?

In the past couple of years, multiple states across the nation have made various attempts to attract cryptocurrency mining centers at which the virtual currency is “mined” on a colossal scale — a process requiring a significant amount of energy — through legislation and business and tax incentives (covered extensively by ELM, including here and here).

After what seemed like increasing setbacks for the cryptocurrency industry, major U.S. banks are now boasting cryptocurrency trading desks. Therefore, regardless of some states’ earlier challenges in …

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sunrise over industrial park
Emissions / NEPA
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NEPA’s Greenhouse Gas Guidance Blown Up In Smoke

At the beginning of this year, ELM forecasted that 2025 would be a big year for the National Environmental Policy Act (previously covered by ELM  here), and so far, our prediction continues to ring true. 

In the latest NEPA news, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the withdrawal of its interim guidance on “Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change” in NEPA reviews, effective May 28. The CEQ determined this interim guidance, which was previously …

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