On December 3, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an order requesting the Solicitor General to weigh in on a case related to the legal status of some types of groundwater. The catch? The Court’s order comes...more
On September 21, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an expedited mandate to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), forcing the agency to reinstate several provisions of its...more
On September 11, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed rule to amend various provisions of a key Obama-era regulation that sought to reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas...more
9/13/2018
/ Amended Regulation ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Methane ,
Natural Gas ,
New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) ,
Oil & Gas ,
Proposed Rules ,
Public Comment ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Rollbacks
On August 17, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated a rule that delayed the effective date of the 2017 Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule amendments issued by the U.S....more
9/12/2018
/ Amended Rules ,
Appeals ,
Clean Air Act ,
Delays ,
Emergency Response ,
Enforcement ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hazardous Waste ,
Proposed Rules ,
Risk Management ,
Safety Precautions ,
Toxic Chemicals ,
Vacated
On Tuesday, August 21, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule, a proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan issued in 2015. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler...more
8/23/2018
/ Carbon Emissions ,
Clean Air Act ,
Clean Power Plan ,
Coal-Fired Generation ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Natural Gas ,
Oil & Gas ,
Power Plants ,
Proposed Rules ,
Renewable Energy
On Thursday, August 2, 2018, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly proposed a rule to freeze the fuel...more
8/3/2018
/ Automotive Industry ,
Clean Air Act ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Fuel Standards ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Manufacturers ,
Motor Vehicles ,
NHTSA ,
Oil & Gas ,
Proposed Rules
On July 30, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will host a workshop to engage stakeholders in a discussion surrounding the development of a study of the economic impacts of compliance with the North American...more
7/19/2018
/ Air Pollution ,
Diesel Fuel ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Federal Register ,
Maritime Transport ,
Oil & Gas ,
Operating Costs ,
Pollution Control ,
Ports ,
Shipping ,
Stakeholder Engagement ,
Vessels
Earlier this week, on April 30, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) quietly modified its source determination test that is used to determine whether emissions from nearby and closely related sources should be...more
5/7/2018
/ Air Pollution ,
Clean Air Act ,
Department of Environmental Protection ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Landfills ,
Oil & Gas ,
Permits ,
Separate Entity Rule ,
Source Determination Rule ,
Title V
On April 30, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published in the Federal Register a controversial proposed rule seeking to restrict the types of scientific research and findings that the EPA can consider in...more
5/2/2018
/ Confidential Information ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Federal Register ,
Non-Public Information ,
Proposed Rules ,
Proprietary Information ,
Public Health ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Safe Drinking Water Act ,
Scientific Research ,
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) ,
Transparency
On April 3, 2018, Susan Bodine, Assistant Administrator of U.S. EPA’s Office of Enforcement Assurance and Compliance Assistance (OECA), issued an internal memorandum titled “The Appropriate Use of Compliance Tools in Civil...more
On February 23, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a prepublication notice to change the Oil and Natural Gas Sector: Emission Standards for New, Reconstructed, and Modified Sources rule (“2016 Rule”). The...more
On February 20, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a notice in the Federal Register requesting public comment on whether the EPA can regulate discharges to groundwater that flow to jurisdictional...more
On Thursday, June 22, 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a series of actions implementing its new authority to review the safety of chemicals already in U.S. commerce under the recently amended Toxic...more
President Trump’s decision earlier this month to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement—an international, nonbinding agreement to take steps to limit global temperature rise—followed a series of moves at the...more
6/20/2017
/ Carbon Emissions ,
Clean Power Plan ,
Climate Change ,
Commercial Buildings ,
Department of Energy (DOE) ,
Energy Tax Incentives ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Executive Orders ,
Global Warming ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Hospitals ,
Methane ,
Oil & Gas ,
Paris Agreement ,
Power Plants ,
Renewable Energy ,
Trump Administration ,
Universities
On June 12, 2017, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced another extension to the effective date of the Obama-era rule amending federal Risk Management Program (RMP) requirements for...more
On June 1, 2017, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement (the “Agreement”), describing it as “disadvantaging the United States” and indicating that the United States...more
6/14/2017
/ Article II ,
Barack Obama ,
Clean Air Act ,
Climate Change ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Green Climate Fund (GCF) ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) ,
Modification ,
Paris Agreement ,
Trump Administration ,
UNFCCC ,
Withdrawal
Regulatory reform has dominated the Trump administration’s environmental policy agenda to date, fueled by Executive Orders requiring agencies to identify unnecessary regulations for revision or outright rescission, and to...more
President Trump has given executive branch agencies 180 days to conduct an internal review and to propose, with input from public stakeholders, reorganization plans to “improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and...more
Only months after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first contacted thousands of oil and gas companies demanding detailed information regarding methane releases from gas production facilities and related equipment, it...more
It looks like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will have its own scary treat for the oil and gas industry this Halloween—an information request under Section 114 of the Clean Air Act designed to help EPA regulate...more
On September 19, 2016, the Inspector General (IG) for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the latest in a long line of reports identifying flaws in EPA’s process for ensuring the efficacy of hospital-grade,...more
Since its passage in 1976, TSCA has been widely criticized—by industry and environmental groups alike—for its perceived inefficacy. When first passed, TSCA aimed to fill an important gap in the nation’s environmental laws,...more
On June 2, 2014, the Obama Administration unveiled an ambitious administrative proposal that would require states to regulate carbon dioxide (“CO2”) emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants, reducing emissions from...more
6/5/2014
/ Carbon Emissions ,
Clean Air Act ,
Climate Action Plan ,
Energy Policy ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Obama Administration ,
Power Plants ,
Renewable Energy ,
RGGI