The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued an Enforcement Alert (“EA”) titled: EPA Finds MSW Landfills are Violating Monitoring and Maintenance Requirements....more
The Environmental Protection Agency intends to issue a rule updating its Clean Air Act emission standards for new and existing municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills to cut methane and other harmful landfill gas emissions....more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued a December 12th news release indicating it had entered into a Consent Agreement with Hamm Inc. (“HI”) addressing alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. ...more
Fourteen environmental organizations submitted a June 22nd Petition to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) asking that it strengthen the Clean Air Act Section 111 New Source Performance Standards...more
Last year, we reported on EPA’s decision to allow the expiration of a moratorium on the 2016 Obama Climate Action Plan rule and guidelines seeking to reduce landfill methane emissions (“Methane Rule and Guidelines”)....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
Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills receive non-hazardous waste from residential properties, commercial businesses, and institutions. When MSW is placed in a lined landfill and covered, it decomposes and emits a gas into...more
In early January 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) decided to halt previous proposals to stay methane rules for new and existing landfills. The Obama Administration’s EPA issued the final New Source...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
Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) requires EPA to issue New Source Performance Standards (NSPSs) for certain source categories of air pollutants. These NSPSs set threshold limits on emissions of certain pollutants...more
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
EPA took major steps on August 18, 2015 to curtail methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by simultaneously releasing four new proposed rules. These actions are part of the Obama Administration’s larger climate...more
Having gotten the Clean Power Plan out the door, EPA has moved on to another target of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan: landfill methane emissions. Late last week, EPA proposed both new emission guidelines for...more