LATEST INSIGHTS

EPA / Texas
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World’s Next Environmental Superhero is a Plastic-Eating Enzyme

If you aren’t toting a reusable water bottle, bamboo straw, or canvas grocery bag, news of a plastic-eating enzyme may not resonate as revolutionary. Nevertheless, plastic waste ranks up there as one of the most pressing environmental problems we face today. There has been little hope in sight of how to shrink the colossal amount of plastic waste—measured in billions of tons—accumulating in landfills across the globe, plaguing our ecosystems, and generating environmental contamination lawsuits. Last month, however, researchers at The University of Texas at …

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Colorado / EPA / Fracking
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Colorado Drilling Project Stopped in its [F]racks!

On May 19, 2022, a Colorado federal district court judge, the Honorable Marcia S. Krieger, issued an opinion and order remanding action, preventing—for now, at least—an expansive fracking plan in Western Colorado from going forward even though it had previously been approved by the United States Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of the Interior, and United States Forest Service (collectively, Agencies) during the Trump administration. Specifically, the court vacated the Agencies’ approval of the North Fork Mancos Master Development Plan (Plan) for hydraulic …

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California / Clean Air Act / EPA
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California’s Clean Air Act Waiver Targeted in New Lawsuit

Ohio, along with sixteen other states, sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday last week, over its March 14, 2022 decision to reinstate a waiver allowing the nation’s most populous state California, under its Advanced Clean Cars Program, to enact tougher vehicle emission standards than those set by the federal government.[1][2]

In 1966, California enacted the nation’s first tailpipe emissions standards in light of its then-severe pollution problems. That was followed in 1970 by the creation of the Clean Air Act, which gave …

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California / Emerging Issues
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Study Finds Increasing Chemical Exposure in Pregnant Women

A study led by researchers at the University of California San Francisco and Johns Hopkins, and published in Environmental Science & Technology has found widespread exposures to prevalent and understudied chemicals in a diverse sample of pregnant women in the United States. The researchers studied urine samples from 171 pregnant women from California, Georgia, Illinois, New Hampshire, New York, and Puerto Rico who were a part of the National Institutes of Health Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program, and measured for 89 different …

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PFAS / PFOA / PFOS
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Can Product Labels Be Used to Predict the Presence of PFAS? A New Study Says “Likely” for Stain- and Water-Resistant Marketed Products; Less Likely for “Green” Marketed Products

“How Well Do Product Labels Indicate the Presence of PFAS in Consumer Items Used by Children and Adolescents?” is the name of a new study published last week by the American Chemical Society, in Environmental Science & Technology. Focusing on children’s’ products, the study’s abstract states that because “product labels rarely list chemical additives, including PFAS,” the authors “evaluated whether other information on product labels can be used by consumers to select products without PFAS.”

“The primary goal of this study was to investigate …

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Filling up a glass with drinking water from kitchen tap
Clean Water Act / EPA / PFAS
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Recommending Federal Discharge Standards for PFAS in Aquatic Life

Known as “forever” chemicals, many PFAS compounds are found in the blood of people and animals all over the world.  They also present at low levels in various food products and in the water, air, fish and soil in many areas. 

Many environmental advocates have called for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set enforceable federal discharge standards for PFAS under the Clean Water Act.  Currently, no such federal regulations exist.  Water utilities in various states have expressed concern that these types of regulations …

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Clean Air Act / Climate Change / Colorado / Maryland
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Companies Face State Court Claims for Climate Damage After Circuit Courts Hold That Such Claims Are Not “Inherently Federal”

Federal appeals courts in Maryland and Colorado have sent lawsuits seeking to hold energy companies responsible for climate change back to state court even after the U.S. Supreme Court directed the Fourth Circuit to take a second look in the Maryland case.

In Maryland, the City of Baltimore seeks millions of dollars in damages for, among other things, energy companies’ alleged violations of the Maryland Consumer Protection Act that affected climate change. In Colorado, the City of Boulder and a couple of Colorado counties also …

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Clean Air Act / EPA
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EPA Puts Ethanol Back in Play to Keep Gas Prices at Bay

On April 29, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officially suspended the ban on sales of gasoline blends with a higher concentration of ethanol. This suspension came two weeks after President Biden’s vow to lift the ban in order to counteract the increased gas prices attributed to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. The suspension went into effect on May 1.

E15, or fuel with 15% ethanol, is traditionally banned during the warmer months—June through October—in an effort to combat the production of smog. In the current …

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California / PFAS
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There’s PFAS in my burger, my fries, my lipstick, and my underwear? How PFAS Litigation has become a game of Whack-A-Mole.

The world’s most recognizable food chains are under heightened scrutiny these days, not for the nutritional value of their products, but for their iconic food packaging. Just last month, a class action complaint filed in federal court in Illinois alleged a popular chain concealed from consumers the presence of PFAS in its food products.  Weeks later, a separate plaintiff sued yet another beloved fast food chain in federal court in California challenging the claim that it uses sustainable packaging and real ingredients. While the kings …

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Emerging Issues / Legislation / President Biden / President Trump
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A REVERSED REVERSAL OF NEPA RULES

Last week, through the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) publication of a final rule at the close of phase one of a two-phase rulemaking process, the Biden administration began its efforts to reverse the prior administration’s reworking of the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Originally signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies to assess environmental, social, and economic impacts of any activities those agencies are seeking to undertake. The list of such actions is broad, but …

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