Category: EPA

Emissions / EPA / Illinois
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First-of-its-kind Ethylene Oxide Verdict Awards Record Damages Against Defendant Sterigenics

On September 19, 2022, a Cook County (Illinois) jury awarded $363 million to 70-year-old plaintiff Susan Kamuda  in the first of many lawsuits against industrial sterilization company Sterigenics.  These lawsuits accuse the company of a reckless, decades-long pollution of Willowbrook, Illinois with ethylene oxide.  The jury in this case went beyond the damages requested by Ms. Kamuda, who lived within a quarter-mile of Sterigenics’ Willowbrook facility for more than 30 years.  While Ms. Kamuda only asked for $21 million in compensatory damages, the jury awarded …

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CERCLA / EPA / PFAS
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EPA Incites Further Controversy Proposing to Designate Forever Chemicals Under CERCLA

While critics may say the federal government has been slow to react to PFAS, last week the EPA took its most aggressive stance — publishing its notice for a proposed federal rule to designate two specific PFAS compounds, PFOA and PFOS, as “hazardous substances” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), and now the clock is ticking. 

Found in surface water, air, soil, and even more recently food packaging, PFOA and PFOS were used pervasively in American manufacturing beginning in the 1940s for their durability, heat/grease resistance, and waterproof nature, and quickly assumed the nomenclature “forever chemicals” because of their remarkable inability to decompose. 

When talking shop, lawyers, insurance carriers, and manufacturers alike have labeled PFAS the ‘emerging contaminant’ to watch out for …

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CERCLA / EPA / PFAS / PFOA
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EPA Proposes to Designate PFOA and PFOS as Hazardous Substances under CERCLA

Friday of last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) published a proposed rule that would designate perfluorooctanoic acid (“PFOA”) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (“PFOS”), including their salts and structural isomers, as hazardous substances under section 102(a) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (commonly known as CERCLA). The designations, if finalized, could have direct and indirect impacts on a range of individuals and companies, as well as the federal government itself.

The five broad categories of entities potentially affected by this designation as …

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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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Clean Air Act / EPA
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The Pendulum Swings Back Again on Clean Air

In June 1989, then-President George H. W. Bush proposed revisions to the Clean Air Act designed to reduce what were perceived as three of the largest threats to the environment at the time: toxic air emissions, acid rain, and urban air pollution.

More specifically, Section 112r of what became the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 required the EPA to publish guidance and regulations for chemical accident prevention by entities using compounds that posed the greatest risk of harm from accidental releases. These regulations were …

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Emerging Issues / EPA
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EPA Renews Push for New ‘EtO’ Regulations and Outreach   

Following a study of 100 commercial sterilizer facilities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on August 3 it would takes steps to inform communities throughout the country about the risks posed by ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions from 23 of specific sterilizer facilities.  

The agency further announced that, using data from the same study as well as ongoing critical EtO research, EPA will propose new regulations intended to protect public health from EtO emissions and protect workers at the facilities themselves, by the end of 2022 …

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EPA / PFAS / PFOA / PFOS
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Trade Association Submits Challenge to EPA’s New PFOA and PFOS Health Advisories

As reported in our blog back in June, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new drinking-water health advisories (HAs) for PFAS contaminants. Specifically, the advisories drastically reduced acceptable PFOA and PFOS water levels from 70 parts per trillion (set in 2016) down to 0.004 parts per trillion for PFOA and 0.02 parts per trillion for PFOS.  

These new advisories, however, are already the subject of attack. Last week, a leading trade association filed a petition challenging these new HAs.  

The petition was filed with the U.S. …

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Emissions / EPA
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DC Circuit asked to say “ethaNO” to biofuel increases

Anything that reduces fuel emissions has to be good for the environment, right? WRONG!

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is facing precisely this seeming anomaly, being asked by the Center for Biological Diversity (“CBD”) this past Wednesday to “review” (read: “halt” or “stop”) the Biden administration’s fuel blending standards, which they claim are a risk to endangered species.

For context, we go back 17 years to when the EPA enacted the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which required transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel …

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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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CERCLA / EPA
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Superfund: An Unsung Victim of COVID

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) — commonly known as “the Superfund” — was enacted in December 1980 in response to growing awareness of, and concern over, the catastrophic environmental impact of unregulated and largely unrestricted dumping of toxic waste into the ecosystems and communities around dump sites.

Executed by the Environmental Protection Agency, Superfund represented the first federally regulated attempt to address these environmental issues — principally through short-term removal actions, such as properly disposing of partially empty drums of toxic …

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