We wanted to take some time to wish all of our subscribers and their families a happy holiday season and all the best in the new year. 2023 has been a busy, active year in the world of environmental law and we appreciate you dropping by our site on a regular basis for emerging issues and up-to-date information. Environmental Law Monitor will return next week with new posts. Once again, happy holidays!…
Continue Reading
In February 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument on various emergency stay applications addressing whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can implement its “Good Neighbor Plan” (the Plan) to reduce cross-state pollution. The court will focus on whether the Plan unreasonably limits emissions and whether the EPA properly disapproved of alternative state emission-reduction plans.
Opponents argue that the Plan arrogates the states’ authority to control emissions and air pollution. They also assert that its unworkable, confusing emissions standards will force them to …
Continue Reading
Nearly ten months after settling over 870 Illinois-based Cook County ethylene oxide (EtO) exposure claims for $408 million (covered by ELM here), at the beginning of the final quarter of 2023, Sterigenics, one of the world’s largest commercial sterilizers, along with its parent company Sotera, agreed to settle 79 lawsuits relating to EtO emissions from the Sterigenics sterilizing plant in Cobb County, Georgia, for an estimated $35 million, submitting its settlement proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in late October. Just as …
Continue Reading
In recent years, the global concentration of methane present in the atmosphere has increased dramatically. In fact, in 2021, methane increased by almost 18 parts per billion in the atmosphere, the largest single year increase since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s records began in 1984. Last year was no exception, as atmospheric methane increased by 14 parts per billion, the fourth largest recorded increase.
These numbers are significant because methane is known as a “super pollutant” that is many times more potent than carbon …
Continue Reading
As widely reported, including in previous issues of the Environmental Law Monitor, the environmental and financial impacts of wildfires in recent years have been significant. In the aftermath of these events, an ever-increasing number of lawsuits have been filed seeking compensation from entities deemed responsible for the disasters. A common target has been electrical utilities.
In Oregon, where it has been alleged that power lines caused multiple fires during a Labor Day weekend 2020 windstorm, electrical utility PacifiCorp has been the target of multiple …
Continue Reading
On the first day of the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, more commonly referred to as COP28, delegates reached a landmark agreement to formerly create a Loss and Damage Fund, a rescue and rehabilitation effort to support especially vulnerable countries dealing with the irreversible and costly effects of climate change.
First suggested in 1991 by the small island nation of Vanuatu, the fund is aimed at encouraging the wealthy and major polluting nations to assist poorer states harmed by …
Continue Reading
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced proposed rules that would strengthen its regulation of lead and copper. These new regulations, if approved, would require water systems across the country to replace lead service lines within the next 10 years. They would also lower the allowable amount of lead in drinking water from 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion and require that lead service lines across the country be replaced within 10 years.
Sampling protocols would improve throughout the country, too. The …
Continue Reading
“Seldom is so ambitious a case filed on so slight a basis.”
That was the first sentence of Judge RaymondKethledge’s opinion vacating a district court order that certified a class of over 11 million Ohio residents who alleged various companies put their health at risk by manufacturing and selling products containing PFAS. The panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit— Kethledge, Thapar, and Mathis — instructed the district court to dismiss this much-talked-about case for lack of jurisdiction. …
Continue Reading
If a company makes, distributes, or sells consumer products—including food products—containing chemicals that might turn the leaves brown, proposed amendments to California’s Proposition 65 may saddle it with additional warning-notice requirements. Affected companies should respond not only by preparing to update their relevant product warnings, but also submitting comments on the state’s rulemaking while they still can.
Proposition 65 requires businesses with 10 or more employees to provide a “clear and reasonable” warning of possible exposure to the 900+ chemicals California has determined to cause …
Continue Reading
As the Biden Administration pushes to transition the country away from fossil fuels to green energy sources, we have been faced with the reality that demand for these necessary minerals could soon outpace supply. For example, electric vehicle manufactures have been searching for additional sources of lithium to meet the Administration’s call for electric vehicles to make up approximately 50 percent of all cars by 2030. Similarly, it is estimated that the world will need almost 50 percent more than its current supply of copper …
Continue Reading