In January of 2018, the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board (“Air Board”) published a proposed rule to establish a CO2 emissions cap and trade program in Virginia (the “Original Proposal”). The regulations set an...more
4/1/2019
/ Audits ,
Carbon Emissions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Drinking Water ,
Emissions Trading System ,
Enforcement ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Flooding ,
Fossil Fuel ,
Governor Northam ,
Landfills ,
PFAS ,
Pollution Control Board ,
Power Plants ,
RGGI ,
Storm Damage ,
Storm Water ,
Waste Management
EPA recently released a final regional office realignment plan in response to President Trump’s March 2017 Executive Order 13781. That order required EPA and other federal agencies to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and...more
12/20/2018
/ Agricultural Sector ,
Bureau of Land Management ,
CERCLA ,
Clean Air Act ,
Clean Water Act ,
Deregulation ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
EPCRA ,
Farm Animals ,
Government Reorganization ,
Groundwater Management Plan ,
Oil & Gas ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) ,
Utilities Sector
EPA has announced a new compliance policy that some will view as providing welcome relief to industry and others may view as providing unwarranted concessions. The subject line of the EPA memo announcing the new policy is...more
10/3/2018
/ Adjacent Property Owners ,
Clean Air Act ,
Clean Water Act ,
Clean Water Rule ,
Coal ,
Coal Ash ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hazardous Waste ,
New Guidance ,
RCRA ,
Sierra Club ,
Strategic Enforcement Plan ,
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) ,
Waters of the United States
EPA recently published guidance for companies preparing to submit new chemical notifications pursuant to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA). The guidance, entitled Points to Consider When Preparing TSCA New Chemical...more
Manufacturers, importers and processors of chemical substances in the United States, know full well the regulatory burdens placed on their industry by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). TSCA requirements can be...more
New Source Review (“NSR”) remains a focus of enforcement for EPA. Between last year and now, EPA finalized eight settlements with manufacturers and one with a utility, asserting NSR violations for allegedly not obtaining a...more
5/3/2018
/ Clean Air Act ,
Clean Water Act ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Groundwater Management Plan ,
Landfills ,
Manufacturers ,
Methane ,
Mining ,
NPDES ,
POTWs
Since 1995, EPA has followed a policy that any air emissions source that emits one or more hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”) above major source emissions thresholds is always considered a major source of HAPs. This is so even...more
2/14/2018
/ Air Pollution ,
Carbon Emissions ,
Clean Air Act ,
Deregulation ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hazardous Substances ,
Manufacturers ,
Pollution Control ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Title V
Manufacturers and large scale users of hazardous chemicals know the significance of March 1st. The Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA) requires facilities where hazardous chemicals were present above...more
A prominent characteristic of the Obama EPA was its close relationship with national environmental groups. The most controversial EPA rulemakings seemed to be the by-product of litigation settlements when environmental groups...more
In April, 2015, EPA published in the Federal Register a final rule regulating the management and disposal of coal combustion residuals (CCR), commonly known as coal ash, from coal-fired power plants. Among other things, the...more
On the first anniversary of the Frank R. Launtenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (also known as the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015), EPA promulgated three significant rules to implement the Act. The Act stands...more
EPA recently announced a 90-day stay for reconsideration of rules governing performance standards and emissions from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Landfills. The final rules issued in July 2016 established new source...more
On June 1, 2017, President Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement (“Paris Agreement”). The Paris Agreement was signed by 195 countries in December of 2015. The goal of the...more
7/10/2017
/ CERCLA ,
Clean Air Act ,
Energy Policy ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
EPCRA ,
Landfills ,
Methane ,
Paris Agreement ,
Pesticides ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Burden ,
Superfund ,
Trump Administration
The Clean Power Plan (“CPP”), and its companion new source review rule, is the Obama Administration’s signature regulation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Among other things, it requires states to put...more
5/17/2017
/ Agricultural Sector ,
Clean Power Plan ,
Clean Water Act ,
Climate Change ,
Environmental Liability ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Executive Orders ,
Groundwater ,
Hazardous Waste ,
NRDC ,
Presidential Memorandum ,
Trump Administration ,
Two For One Rule
Most industrial facilities will, at some point, be inspected by an environmental regulatory agency. Generally, regulatory agencies have authority to enter public or private property that is governed by an environmental...more
EPA and the Department of Justice recently settled a Clean Water Act enforcement action with EMD Millipore Corp. of Jaffrey, NH, by lodging a Consent Decree in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. The...more
Companies with hazardous chemical reporting obligations know the significance of March 1. On that date each year, facilities that at any time during the prior year had 10,000 pounds or more of an OSHA hazardous chemical, or...more
President Trump has wasted no time in acting on his environmental agenda. On January 24, his second working day in office, the President signed two Executive Orders giving the green light to construction of the Keystone and...more
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) has clarified its approach to issuing “no further action” letters (“NFAs”) for sites with both petroleum and non-petroleum contamination. This clarified approach will...more
12/15/2016
/ CERCLA ,
Common Stock ,
Contaminated Properties ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
EPCRA ,
General Permit ,
NESHAP ,
New Guidance ,
Pesticides ,
Remediation ,
Solar Energy ,
Superfund ,
Underground Storage Tanks
A recent CERCLA settlement provides an unusual method for reimbursing response costs incurred by EPA at a Superfund site. Under a proposed Consent Decree concerning the Yavapai Penta Superfund Site in Prescott, Arizona,...more
EPA has revised its procedures for making certain changes to its “Test Methods for Evaluating Solid Waste, Physical/Chemical Methods,” also known as SW-846. The test method and its compendium of guidance documents provide...more
Earlier this year, EPA announced revised National Enforcement Initiatives (“NEIs”) beginning October 1, 2016 for fiscal years 2017-2019. Among other areas of concentration, EPA’s NEIs include the expansion of a previous air...more
A 2015 EPA rulemaking required 36 states to revise their State Implementation Plans (“SIPs”) to eliminate provisions exempting air emission exceedances during periods of startup, shutdown, or malfunction (the “SSM SIP Call...more
8/12/2016
/ Air Pollution ,
Clean Air Act ,
Comment Period ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Final Rules ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Permits ,
Proposed Regulation ,
SSM Periods ,
State Implementation Plans (SIPs) ,
Title V
Time to Pay More: EPA Increases Maximum Civil Penalties -
Remember the days when the maximum civil penalty EPA could assess for a violation of environmental law was $25,000 per day? Those days disappeared 26 years ago...more
8/11/2016
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Boiler MACT Rule ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Clean Air Act ,
Climate Action Plan ,
Department of Environmental Quality ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Distributors ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015 ,
Final Rules ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Hazardous Substances ,
Inflation Adjustments ,
Interim Rule ,
Labeling ,
Landfills ,
Manufacturers ,
Methane ,
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) ,
OSHA ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Risk Assessment ,
Solid Waste ,
SSM Periods ,
State Implementation Plans (SIPs) ,
Title V ,
Toxic Chemicals ,
UN GHS
The Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) is the primary federal law by which the manufacture, import and use of chemical substances are regulated in the United States. Since its inception in 1976, TSCA has not been updated...more