LATEST INSIGHTS

EPA
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Get the Lead Out

Two recent developments illustrate that the dangers of lead paint need to remain on the radar, especially for employers, property owners, and real estate managers. First, on January 26, a jury in New York handed down a $57 million verdict against the New York City Housing Authority after it failed to perform lead paint inspections and then represented that the inspections had been completed. The Housing Authority’s failure resulted in high blood-lead levels in at least one small child, whose mother sued the Housing Authority. …

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Clean Water Act / EPA
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Clean Water Rule Update — The EPA Postpones Effective Date of WOTUS

The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes a structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulates quality standards for surface waters. In May 2015, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced the Clean Water Rule (the Rule or WOTUS), hoping to clarify the reach of the elusive phrase “waters of the United States” — the bodies of water protected under the CWA. When the Rule passed in 2015, developers, farmers, and property owners alike became extremely …

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Offshore Drilling
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Not in My Backyard: Coastal States Seek Exemptions to Offshore Drilling

On January 4, 2018, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced the 2019-2024 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, a plan to open nearly all U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas exploration and drilling. The program would lease the coastal areas along the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and several regions of the Arctic Ocean (i.e., Alaska) for oil and gas exploration and contemplates 47 leases on the outer continental shelf of US waters. Prior to 2019, the administration …

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EPA
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Cutting the Red Tape: EPA Moves to Shorten Approval Process for New Products

The Environmental Protection Agency has altered its approach to assessing new chemicals for health and environmental hazards, resulting in streamlining the safety review process that had been criticized as too slow and cumbersome. Under the new approach, the EPA will no longer require that manufacturers offering new chemicals sign legal agreements that restrict the chemicals use under certain conditions.

Those agreements, known as consent orders, will still be required if the EPA believes that the manufacturer’s intended use for a new chemical poses a risk …

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Climate Change / Litigation / New York
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New York City Sues Big Oil Over Effects of Climate Change

Earlier this month, the New York City government (the City) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against five of the world’s largest publically traded oil companies. The complaint alleges that the defendants significantly contributed to climate-change through the sale of oil and gas products over the years, resulting in property damage and subsequently forcing the City to incur other costs associated with weather-related prevention efforts, now and in the future.

Specifically, the City claims that the …

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California / Water Contamination
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The Bar Lowered: Lower Causation Standard for Plaintiff Under California’s Polanco Redevelopment Act

The California Court of Appeals rang in the New Year for plaintiffs by handing owners, operators, transporters, and arrangers that work with hazardous materials an adverse decision on the issue of causation. In the City of Modesto v. The Dow Chemical Company (2018 WL 317043 (Cal. Ct. App., Jan. 8, 2018), the court focused on the standard of causation that a plaintiff must meet to support a finding of liability under the Polanco Redevelopment Act (Polanco Act).

The court lowered the standard from a direct …

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New York / PFOA / Water Contamination
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PFAS Update — Hudson Valley City Authorizes its City Council to Commence Suit Involving PFOS Contamination to Drinking Water Supply

The City of Newburgh, New York has had enough. After the city’s water supply was shut down following contamination by perfluorooctane sulfonate, a toxic chemical known as PFOS, residents have authorized its city council to commence a lawsuit against the alleged contaminator, a nearby Air National Guard Base.

PFOS, and the related chemical PFOA (both of which are part of the class of Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFASs) was first discovered in Newburgh’s water supply in mid-2016. Washington Lake, Newburgh’s main drinking water …

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Hydraulic Fracturing
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Shale Watch Alert — Delaware River Basin Commission Moves Toward Hydraulic Fracturing Ban

While the Trump administration has ushered in an era of deregulation on the environmental front, including proposals to repeal Obama-era standards governing hydraulic fracturing on government land, the Delaware River Basin Commission (the Commission) recently made headway in the other direction. On November 30, 2017, the Commission approved a resolution that could lead to a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the Delaware River watershed —a region that includes 24 counties in portions of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The Commission is a multi-state …

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New Jersey / New York / PFOA
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The PFOA/PFOS Conversation Moves from New Jersey to New York

In November, we reported on New Jersey’s adoption of the lowest Maximum Contaminant Limits (14 parts per trillion) for PFOAs (perfluorooctanoic acid) in the nation. And a few weeks ago, we reported on the New Jersey scientists that are urging the state to impose a strict limit of 13 ppt for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) as the level at which human health would be protected over a lifetime of exposure. Now we move to New York.

In September 2017, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his …

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Clean Air Act / Maryland
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MTBE Update — Maryland AG’s Office Commences MTBE Litigation Against 50 Oil Companies

Just last month, the Maryland Attorney General filed suit in Baltimore City Circuit Court against over 50 petroleum related companies to recover damages and address widespread contamination of Maryland’s waters with methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). MTBE is a chemical compound that was used as a fuel additive in gasoline since the late 1970s to make the fuel burn more cleanly, reducing smog. In the 1990s, MTBE was used specifically to fulfill the oxygenate requirements set by Congress in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. …

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