Author: Karen Cullinane

Legislation
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Congress Expected to Pass Environmental Justice for All Act

On Thursday, March 18, 2021, Congressional members who drafted the Environmental Justice for All Act (EJAA) reintroduced the bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, co-chair and co-founder of the Senate’s first environmental justice caucus, is co-sponsoring a parallel bill moving through the Senate.

Similar to environmental justice legislation recently passed on the state level in New Jersey (covered by ELM here), the EJAA is a part of a larger effort to prioritize environmental justice in federal policy. Although …

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EPA
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Changes in EPA Audit Policy Q&A Promotes Voluntary Self-Disclosure

In early February, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding its audit policy program, which is officially called, “Incentives for Self-Policing: Discovery, Disclosure, Correction and Prevention of Violations” (Audit Policy). The purpose of the Audit Policy, originally effected in 1996, is to safeguard human health and the environment by, according to the EPA, “providing several major incentives for regulated entities to voluntarily discover and fix violations of federal environmental laws and regulations.” 

These major incentives are: 

  • Significant penalty reductions
  • No
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Emerging Issues / EPA
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Are SEPs Dead? Outgoing DOJ Strengthens Prohibition on SEPs as Mitigating Remedies

During the final days of the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), which represents the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in environmental enforcement actions, issued a memorandum that summarizes new polices relating to Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs). SEPs are environmentally beneficial projects that settling parties had previously been allowed to undertake either to diminish fines or to serve in lieu of paying civil penalties in order to resolve environmental law violations, and had been popular with alleged violators and …

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Clean Water Act / EPA / Florida
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Does Florida’s Plan to Take Over the Federal Wetlands Permitting Process Hold Water?

On December 17, 2020, two years after the Florida legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill serving as an initial step to promote the transfer of permitting authority from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the state of Florida, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted the Sunshine State’s request and approved a plan transferring federal authority to the state to issue permits for projects affecting the state’s wetlands. Florida will be only the third state in the United States to be granted such broad permitting …

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Emerging Issues / Regulations
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Presidential Environmental Policy Rigidly Defined by Doubt and Uncertainty

Following what seemed like an interminable and chaotic presidential election cycle, November 3, 2020, is finally upon us, and the country will soon know who our next president will be. Regardless of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden takes the oath of office come January, what is not certain is how each of their respective policy objectives would play out during the next presidential term―particularly with regard to environmental regulations and oversight. Although one might assume the vast gulf between the two candidates on environmental …

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Clean Air Act / New Jersey
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The Garden State Passes Landmark Environmental Justice Legislation to Protect Overburdened Communities

In the United States, New Jersey has quickly become a leader in tackling environmental justice issues. Earlier this year, the state, which boasts 130 miles of shoreline, became the first to require builders to take climate change and rising sea levels into account to obtain government project bids. The Garden State also pledged it would produce 100 percent clean energy by 2050. On September 18, 2020, Gov. Phil Murphy signed one of the most stringent environmental justice bills in the country into law. The overall …

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Emerging Issues
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Will the U.S. Finally Have a Legal Reckoning with Ammonium Nitrate?

The explosion in the port of Beirut earlier this month was caused by—according to Lebanese officials—ammonium nitrate, and serves as a reminder of the deadly power of this chemical when recklessly stored or when there is an absence of oversight of its use.

Indeed, the Lebanese disaster echoes similarly fatal explosions involving ammonium nitrate at chemical plants in industrial pockets of the United States. Moreover, it is a primary chemical component of the livestock manure and fertilizer blanketing ever-expanding farms flung across the nation that …

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Emerging Issues / Hydraulic Fracturing
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Wave of Oil and Gas Bankruptcies Expected to Lead to Costly Cleanups

U.S. oil and gas companies have increasingly moved towards bankruptcy—particularly in recent months—amid a global price war and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing demand. It is possible that nearly 250 oil and gas companies may file for bankruptcy protection by the end of 2021. This market crisis may soon bring about, and be further compounded by, a costly environmental crisis involving abandoned hydraulic fracturing wells. 

Abandoned wells often leak gases, such as methane, that pollute and warm the planet. Preventing water contamination or …

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CERCLA
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SCOTUS Ponders Limits of Federal and State Oversight of Hazardous Waste Cleanup

On December 3, 2019, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian, which addresses the limits of state and federal oversight of hazardous waste cleanup.

Landowners in Montana obtained a 2017 Montana State Court win, in which the court granted them permission to seek funding for additional cleanup of hazardous waste emanating from a former anaconda site contaminated with arsenic and smelter lead in order to go beyond what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had already directed in …

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New Jersey / PFOA
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PFAS Contaminants Discovered at NJ Trump Golf Course

Recent utility tests of drinking water on President Trump’s golf property in Bedminster, New Jersey, revealed, for the third time this year, the presence of perflurooctanoic acid (PFOA), which is one of the more common PFAS compounds. A lab retained by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection measured 3.5 – 3.6 parts per trillion (ppt) of the chemical at the property. Depending on who you talk to, the levels detected could be considered low and not harmful or, alternatively, they could be considered too high …

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