LATEST INSIGHTS

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Climate Change / Emerging Issues
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Earth Day 2025: States Step Up for Biodiversity Amid Global Goals

As we reflect on environmental stewardship this week, the accelerating loss of biodiversity remains one of the most critical challenges facing our planet. Healthy ecosystems provide essential services – clean air and water, pollination, climate regulation, and more – underpinning human well-being and economic stability. While international efforts aim to address this crisis, action within the United States increasingly relies on state-level leadership and legal innovation.

Globally, the primary framework for conservation is the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In 2022, parties to the …

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US state Illinois flag
Emissions / Illinois
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Illinois Supreme Court to Decide Whether Ethylene Oxide Emissions Qualify as Traditional Environmental Pollution

The question of whether ethylene oxide emissions constitute traditional environmental pollution for the purpose of interpreting commercial general liability pollution exclusions remains unsettled in many jurisdictions across the United States. The issue may soon receive greater clarity in Illinois — and more broadly within the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals — in response to a recent direct request from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to the Illinois Supreme Court to provide specific direction concerning how Illinois law should address the question.

The Seventh Circuit’s …

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Flag of California
California / PFAS
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California Bill Expands Definition of ‘Intentionally Added PFAS’

Our blog has reported previously on California PFAS regulations, including its watershed laws with novel definitions of PFAS and the noted problems with the total organic fluorine testing method. (Prior CA blog posts on PFAS).

We have also written on California’s PFAS ban in many children’s products and in disposable food packaging (here), California’s requirements on carpet and rug manufacturers to consider alternatives to PFAS, and bans (except under specified circumstances) on any cosmetic product that contains any of several specified …

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Large coal fired power plant with smoking chimneys
Emissions / EPA
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Montana Power Plant Requests Clean Air Waiver: Is This the Future of America’s Coal Energy?

The Colstrip Power Plant in Montana is now one of the early applicants to the new EPA exemption application process which we have previously discussed here. Specifically, the Colstrip plant has requested a two-year exemption from EPA standards regarding air pollution.

Previously, in April 2024, this power plant was subject to stricter standards under updates to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for power plants which was targeted at reducing airborne emissions of heavy metals including lead, arsenic, and mercury and had a compliance …

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New Jersey Flag with blue sky background
New Jersey / PFAS
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New Jersey Proposal Transitions PFAS Criteria to Enforceable Remediation Standards

In March, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) proposed to formally add GenX, PFNA, PFOA, PFOS — all PFAS compounds — and methanol to the list of regulated contaminants under various statutes.

This includes the Ground Water Quality Standards (GWQS), Remediation Standards, and Technical Requirements for Site Remediation.

The proposed amendments establish a specific ground water quality criterion for GenX, as well as soil and soil leachate remediation standards for PFNA, PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and methanol. Each of these contaminants were previously regulated …

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Industry chimney with white smoke stack against blue sky.
Emissions
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Colorado Jury Issues First Defense Verdict after Years of EtO Exposure Lawsuits in US

A Colorado jury issued a defense verdict following a six-week trial during which four women alleged their respective cancers were caused by exposure to EtO emitted by the nearby Terumo Blood & Cell Technologies Lakewood plant over the course of several decades. They asked for a $444 million judgment.

Notably, during a years-long nationwide assessment of EtO facility emissions (covered by ELM here), the EPA previously concluded that the fence-line community living next to the Lakewood facility in Jefferson County had an elevated cancer …

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Emissions / EPA
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EPA Introduces New Email Account for Regulated Community to Request Presidential Exemption

The Environmental Protection Agency announced March 12 it set up an e-mail account allowing the regulated community to request a presidential exemption under Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”). 

The CAA permits the president to grant exemptions to stationary sources from compliance with any standard or limitation set forth under Section 112 for up to two years if the technology required to meet the standard is not available and if it’s in the United States’ national security interests.

In particular, the EPA requested …

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People are holding banner signs while they are going to a demonstration against climate change
Emerging Issues
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U.S. Supreme Court Ends Youth Climate Change Suit

On March 24, in Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana et al. v. United States of America et al., the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a petition to hear an appeal from Our Children’s Trust from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision concluding that a lawsuit from youths alleging that current federal energy policies harm their future by exacerbating climate change.

In an order with no explanation, the Supreme Court Justices denied the petition for a writ of certiorari, which means the Ninth Circuit Court of …

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Emerging Issues / Legislation / Litigation / North Dakota
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Is Environmental Activism Litigation in Trouble?

In a landmark decision, a North Dakota jury has ordered Greenpeace to pay over $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). This verdict stems from Greenpeace’s involvement in the 2016-2017 protests against the pipeline’s construction near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Energy Transfer accused Greenpeace of defamation, trespassing, nuisance, and civil conspiracy, alleging that the organization orchestrated violent protests and disseminated false information about the pipeline, leading to significant financial losses.

The DAPL project…

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EPA / WOTUS
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New Guidance for Defining the ‘Waters of the United States’

The Environmental Protection Agency announced March 10 it will be revising the definition for the Waters of the United States Rule (WOTUS). In a news release it said, “[t]he agencies will move quickly to ensure that a revised definition follows the law, reduces red-tape, cuts overall permitting costs, and lowers the cost of doing business in communities across the country while protecting the nation’s navigable waters from pollution.” 

In connection with this revision, the EPA will be relying on the Supreme Court decision in Sackett …

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