Author: Karen Cullinane

Stormy White House
Climate Change / President Biden
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New Executive Order Renews & Strengthens America’s Commitment to Environmental Justice

Right on the heels of Earth Day, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14096, titled “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All” (full text of the Order can be found in the Federal Register, accessible here).

This “whole of government” EO will affect how the federal government oversees permitting and funding for industry building and expansion in already overburdened communities, in which low-income and people of color typically reside. This is only the latest of many actions undertaken by this administration signaling …

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United States Environmental Protection Agency
Clean Air Act / EPA
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Highly Anticipated Proposed EtO Rules the EPA Just Announced: Were They Worth The Wait?

After years of delays – largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic – on April 11, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally issued two proposals that would reduce ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions affecting fence-line communities neighboring EtO sterilization facilities and establish direct protections for facility employees likely to be regularly exposed to this sterilizing chemical. The proposals, which fall under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), are expected to dramatically reduce EtO emissions by a whopping 80% …

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crypto mining
Crypto / Emissions
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Crypto Mining Not Going Anywhere – Maybe Just Not How You Think

It has been a rough year for cryptocurrency mining. Just a year ago, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing addressing the environmental effects of cryptocurrency mining, with a particular focus on the process’s use of energy and resulting high rates of emissions (covered by ELM here), but with a noticeable bent of optimism and openness from the presiding representatives who ran the panel. Millennial U.S. Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York even went so far as to declare: “With a multi-billion-dollar market …

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Close up view of railroad, transport background
Emerging Issues / EPA
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What We Know – and Might Never Know – about the East Palestine, Ohio, Train Derailment

A few hours after dinner time on Feb. 3, and approximately 20 miles following a dramatic slow-down from a speed of 50 miles per hour to about half that, a Norfolk Southern freight train consisting of 38 cars – 11 of which were carrying hazardous materials – derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.

Although the derailment released several types of chemicals, many of which can break down or react with elements in the environment, five of those 11 cars contained vinyl chloride, a highly flammable chemical …

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"justice concept, selective focus on nearest part ,lens blur f/x"
Emerging Issues / Emissions
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New Sprawling EtO Litigations Mount as Our Pandemic-Shaken World Increasingly Relies on Commercial Sterilizers

Right on the heels of the eye-popping $408 million settlement between a major commercial sterilizer and plaintiffs claiming injuries resulting from exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO) emitted from the company’s Illinois facility (covered by ELM here), the company now faces two different legal actions initiated by two new groups of plaintiffs but similarly stemming from fugitive EtO emissions from the company’s U.S. facilities. These legal battles come at a time when there are not yet viable alternatives to EtO, a highly efficient medical-equipment sterilizing …

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Aerial view to industrial zone and technology park.
Legislation / New York
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New York State Passes Landmark Environmental Justice Legislation

On the final day of 2022, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law the Cumulative Impacts Bill (CIB), which both houses of New York State’s legislature had passed eight months earlier in the year (language here: S.8830 and A.2103D). The legislation amends New York’s Environmental Quality Review Act by now requiring the State to consider during its permitting approval and renewal processes an analysis of the “cumulative impacts” on overburdened communities that could result over time from the introduction or expansion of facilities …

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Cryptocurrency mining rigs in a data center
Emerging Issues / New York
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While the Crypto Financial World Burns, New York Passes Law Preventing Crypto Miners from Burning More Fossil Fuels

A few weeks after her election as New York’s first female governor, and a couple days before New Yorkers sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Nov. 22 finally signed an environmental conservation moratorium on new cryptocurrency mining operations, which both houses of state’s Legislature passed over the summer. (The bill’s progress was followed and reported on by ELM all year, most recently here.)

For two years, the law will disallow crypto mining companies from using the energy-intensive “proof-of-work” method to mint …

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semi truck driving
Emissions / EPA
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How New Emissions Standards Are Leading to Selfies with Trucks

Just a few weeks ago, in late October, trucking and manufacturing representatives from across the United States convened in San Diego for the American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference and Exhibition to discuss the impact that new and pending emissions regulations will have on the trucking industry and its equipment market. The conference’s particular focus was on standards announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year, and on California’s Air and Resources Board’s (CARB) finalized Advanced Clean Trucks rule and proposed Advanced Clean Fleets …

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Clean Water Act / EPA
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The Clean Water Act’s Not So Clean Application in Close Cases

Just last week, on October 3, 2022, Sackett v. EPA found itself once again before the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments, its first appearance at SCOTUS having been a decade before. In January 2022, when the Supreme Court agreed to hear Sackett for a second time following remand, the petitioner Sacketts had amended their complaint in order to challenge the subject compliance order issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prohibiting the Sacketts from modifying the wetlands on their property on the basis that …

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Emerging Issues / Microplastics
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New Microplastics Requirements Put California’s Drinking Water to the Test

As previously reported in ELM, microplastics – plastic fragments smaller than 5 millimeters in length – have been found everywhere from Antarctica (https://environmentallawmonitor.com/emerging-issues/microplastics-found-for-the-first-time-in-freshly-fallen-snow/) to human lung tissue (https://environmentallawmonitor.com/emerging-issues/study-finds-microplastics-in-human-lung-tissue/) to, especially, bodies of water (https://environmentallawmonitor.com/emerging-issues/can-biofilm-engineering-be-used-to-address-microplastics-pollution/). This ubiquity has led to an increased number of studies and ever-improving sampling methods for the purposes of reversing the omnipresence of microplastics. 

After years of research involving several dozen laboratories, last week, California’s Water Resources Control Board approved microplastics testing requirements – the world’s …

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