Author: Goldberg Segalla

California / Climate Change
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Key Corporate Climate Accountability Bill Fails to Pass in California

Despite California’s most recent, two-year legislative session ending on September 1 with a flurry of new bills aimed at fighting global warming getting passed, one noticeable bill failed to pass on the last day. Senator Scott Wiener’s S.B. 260, i.e., California’s Climate Corporate Accountability Act, died on the legislative floor by one vote. Co-authored by Senator Henry Stern, S.B. 260 would have been the nation’s first-ever mandatory requirement for large corporations to disclose their greenhouse emissions.

Had it been enacted, California’s legislation would have set …

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EPA / PFAS
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EPA Previews 2021 List of Toxic Release Inventory

On July 28, 2022, the Environmental protection Agency (“EPA”) released its preliminary 2021 Toxics Release Inventory (“TRI”).  The purpose of the TRI is to give the public critical information regarding chemical releases, waste management, and pollution prevention undertaken at both federal and industrial facilities in the United States.  

The TRI program was created by Congress in 1986 as part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act.  Chemicals that are covered by the program include those that have adverse health or environmental …

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Emerging Issues / President Biden
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New Law Provides Clean Energy Tax Credit Bonanza

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that President Biden signed into law on August 16 ran, all told, about 725 pages. One of the more complex and—for businesses—interesting portions of this law involves its restructuring and expanding of clean-energy tax credits, which may provide opportunities for companies operating in and around the clean-energy area. 

The IRA increased the tax credits’ appeal by extending them at full value for 10 years; the credits only decline once power-sector carbon emissions fall to 75% of today’s levels. It also expanded the scope of these …

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People are holding banner signs while they are going to a demonstration against climate change
Climate Change / Emerging Issues
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Kids File Climate-Change Suit Against Their Home State, Alleging Betrayal 

Faced with back-to-back years of unprecedented flooding, wildfires, and soaring temperatures, sixteen teens and children from Montana, ages 2-18, are suing their home state in what may precipitate the next wave of climate-change litigation. 

With favorable rulings from a state judge and the Montana Supreme Court, the children’s lawsuit is on track to become the first such climate lawsuit to go to trial in the United States. It alleges that Montana, by fostering fossil fuels as its primary energy resource, is contributing to a deteriorating …

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Climate Change / President Biden
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What would the declaration of a “national climate emergency” mean for businesses?

President Biden is reportedly contemplating the declaration of a “national climate emergency” (NCE).  According to his advisors, all options are on the table for the administration as it seeks to meet its ambitious climate goals.  But what are these options, and what practical effect would they have?

The most probable economic consequence of an NCE would be a further spike in energy prices.  An NCE would give President Biden access to several tools allowing him to restrict the trade, development, or extraction of fossil fuels.  …

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Emerging Issues / General
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Lithium and Minerals Alert: To Mine or Not to Mine? The Perfect Paradox

In March, ELM posted on the burgeoning environmental conflict over plans to construct an open-pit lithium mine in Thacker Pass, Nevada — plans triggered by what has become a momentous shift away from an emissions-intensive, fossil-fuel based economy, to one powered by renewables. See: “Ranchers, Environmentalists, and Indigenous Communities Lock Arms Against Homegrown Lithium.”

Precipitated by the potential for domestically sourced minerals to foster homegrown energy and in turn breed income, twenty-first century prospectors have been flocking to the nation’s once abandoned mineral …

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Emerging Issues
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Latest Microplastics Findings: Meat and Dairy

A study conducted by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and commissioned by the Plastic Soup Foundation, has found that nearly 80 percent of meat and dairy products from farm animals contain microplastics.  

Released July 8, the study was conducted by the same group of researchers that found microplastics in human blood, reported by the Environmental Law Monitor here. The group screened a variety of samples from livestock farms in the Netherlands for the presence of plastic particles. 

The researchers tested 12 samples of livestock feed, …

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California / Emerging Issues
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California Implements Legislation to Reduce Plastic Pollution and Extend Producer Responsibility Laws

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on June 30 a bill that aims to drastically cut single-use waste in the Golden State by shifting responsibility from consumers to the industry that produces it.  

The legislation, SB 54 — known also as ‘The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act’ — will apply to almost every type of plastic packing you might see at a California grocery store or big box outlet.  

Acting as an extended producer responsibility law, SB 54 requires all single-use …

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Clean Air Act / EPA
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Supreme Court Requires Specific Congressional Authorization For Regulations That Give Federal Agencies “Extravagant” Power Over The National Economy

As regular readers of this blog know, we have been keeping tabs on the Supreme Court’s review of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case addressing how broadly executive agencies can interpret the legislation authorizing their activities.  Today, the Supreme Court issued its opinion on the matter, holding that the “major questions” doctrine precluded the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to require energy producers to change the type of energy generation they use.

Under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, …

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Filling up a glass with drinking water from kitchen tap
EPA / PFAS / PFOA / PFOS
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School’s Out for Summer, but EPA’s Latest PFAS Drinking Water Health Advisory Order is No Vacation for the Regulated Industry or Litigants

If you drink water, pay a water bill, or watch the news, you’ve undoubtedly heard or seen (but were likely unable to pronounce) the acronyms for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), two of the most recognized compounds within the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.

Known as PFAS compounds, they were used pervasively in American manufacturing dating back to the 1940s and assumed the nomenclature “forever chemicals” because of their remarkable and arguably useful ability to not decompose. PFAS’ unique resistance to breaking …

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