With names like “boiler slag” and “bottom ash,” it’s no wonder that anyone who has ever heard of coal ash, or the coal combustion residuals (CCRs) produced from burning coal, assumes they are the basest forms of pollution. And they’re not entirely wrong; bottom ash is the burn-up matter that is too large to be carried up into the smoke stacks so it collects in the bottom of a coal furnace. Boiler slag is the glassy pellets that form in the bottom of coal stoves …
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The European Union plans to push back against the clean-tech tax breaks provided in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) by easing subsidy rules and creating a new source of money to help member states compete with the United States.
Some EU members see aspects of the IRA as discriminatory, designed to benefit U.S. climate tech manufacturers at the expense of Europe. The IRA sets aside $369 billion worth of tax breaks and subsidies to boost green technology and energy security in the U.S., several of …
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The Environmental Protection Agency recently published a Cumulative Impacts Addendum (“Addendum”) to its Legal Tools to Advance Environmental Justice (“EJ Legal Tools”), issued in May 2022.
This Addendum builds on the cumulative impacts discussion in the EJ Legal Tools and provides additional detail and analysis regarding the EPA’s legal authority to address cumulative impacts affecting communities with environmental justice concerns.[1] These authorities include standard-setting, permitting, cleanup, emergency response, funding, planning, and state program oversight.
Although the Addendum itself is not a legally …
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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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Biden administration officials announced on December 20, 2022, that the U.S. Postal Service intends to purchase over 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, which would create one of the nation’s largest electric fleets in an effort to fight climate change.
To reach this goal, the USPS announced that it plans to purchase 60,000 so-called “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” (NGDV) from Wisconsin-based defense contractor Oshkosh, 45,000 of which will be electric. The remainder will be supplied by a 46,000-vehicle purchase from other automobile makers; 21,000 of those …
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More and more state legislatures are looking to PFAS exposure as one of the main focuses of their new environmental regulations. As of this month, Maine banned the sale of residential carpets containing PFAS and became the first state to require companies to report products containing the chemicals. Maine’s law will ban all non-essential PFAS products by 2030. In November, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce told the state Department of Environmental Protection that the new laws would affect nearly every sector of the state …
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In early January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposal to revise and strengthen a key national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for fine particle pollution, also known as PM2.5.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set two types of NAAQS: health-based standards, called primary standards, and standards to protect public welfare, called secondary standards. Based on the scientific evidence and technical information, EPA has set two primary standards for PM2.5, which work together to protect public health: the …
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On Jan. 18, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it is seeking input regarding the development of Meat and Poultry Products (“MPP”) Effluent Limitations Guidelines Rulemaking Revision.
As part of this process the EPA seeks to put together a Small Business Advocacy Review Panel. The EPA is looking to gather comments and suggestions from small entity representatives. Changes to these rules would, per the EPA, impact at least some of the thousands of meat and poultry facilities throughout the United States. The goal of the EPA in implementing …
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The pendulum of policy on the environment was sent pounding back toward regulation again when the Biden administration issued new directives for greenhouse gas emissions.
The Interim Guidance on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change (“Interim Guidance”) seeks to:
On January 9, 2023, Sotera Health Company announced it reached agreements to settle more than 870 ethylene-oxide cases pending against its subsidiaries, including Sterigenics, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The claims arose out of operations of Sterigenics’ Willowbrook, Ill. medical sterilization facility, which closed in 2019 following backlash regarding ethylene oxide emissions. Per the terms of the agreements, Sterigenics will pay $408 million, “subject to substantially all of the plaintiffs …
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