New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced June 25 that she is directing New York Power Authority to add at least one gigawatt of new nuclear power generation by building a zero-emission nuclear power plant somewhere in upstate New...more
In the past couple of years, multiple states across the nation have made various attempts to attract cryptocurrency mining centers at which the virtual currency is “mined” on a colossal scale — a process requiring a...more
A Colorado jury issued a defense verdict following a six-week trial during which four women alleged their respective cancers were caused by exposure to EtO emitted by the nearby Terumo Blood & Cell Technologies Lakewood plant...more
Despite longstanding bipartisan support, the U.S. Senate on Feb. 27 — just as the House did the day prior — passed a resolution withdrawing the waste emissions charge (WEC), which is a fee on methane waste emissions caused by...more
The election of Donald Trump back into office was cheered by cryptocurrency enthusiasts across the country for his public support of the industry. After all, the president even has his own memecoin ($TrumpCoin, of course) and...more
During the first week of oral arguments of its new term, the U.S. Supreme Court heard City & County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency. This case marks the court’s first look at the Clean Water Act following...more
As cryptocurrency has increased its notoriety in the US, so has its demands on the US electrical grid. Indeed, the US is witnessing a constantly proliferating number of cryptomining facilities, which are large spaces – often...more
On August 22, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana permanently blocked the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice from implement Civil Rights Act Title VI...more
Plastics are inescapable. They are used in packaging, home supplies, medical devices, and countless other items. Naturally then, over the past several years, and as covered by ELM and GS’s Toxic Tort and Environmental Law...more
Last week, in a 5-4 opinion, in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Supreme Court granted applications for a stay of the implementation of the “Good Neighbor” Plan, the EPA’s federal emissions reduction rule,...more
On the final day of April 2024, a week and a half after Earth Day, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) finalized a rule intended to simplify and modernize the...more
The Environmental Protection Agency on March 14 announced final amendments to the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) applicable to 90 large commercial sterilization facilities that use ethylene...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week approved the implementation of standardized climate disclosure rules (posted here) for publicly traded companies and in public offerings. No longer can companies simply...more
3/14/2024
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Transparency
As closely monitored by ELM over the last couple of years, the expansion of cryptocurrency mining in the United States has resulted in the industry simply devouring the country’s energy resources (see here for general...more
Perhaps nothing has proven the indispensable value of commercial sterilizers more than the devastating worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Without the highly effective and efficient commercial sterilizer ethylene oxide (EtO), we...more
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...more
At the end of October, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued Executive Order No. 292, which reestablishes the Secretary of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board (EJ Board) as the...more
Following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2016 finding that ethylene oxide (EtO), a highly effective chemical routinely used to sterilize medical devices and equipment, was significantly more hazardous than...more
On September 7, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was updating its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations through its Phase II FOIA final rule. This “modernization,” is part of EPA’s...more
With COVID diagnoses spiking across the United States this summer, we cannot yet claim that the pandemic is behind us. In fact, we are still experiencing residual medical device and equipment shortages, which has caused...more
In the fall of 2020, when New Yorkers saw photos and videos of orange skies over San Francisco caused by the Bay Area’s infamous fog, combined with heavy smoke from what seemed like non-stop wildfires raging throughout...more
After a COVID-related dip, ethylene oxide (EtO) cannot seem to stay out of the news these days. Every week there is some EtO-related legal or technological development in the United States. And now the public is being...more
Right on the heels of Earth Day, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14096, titled “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All”....more
After years of delays – largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic – on April 11, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally issued two proposals that would reduce ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions affecting fence-line...more
It has been a rough year for cryptocurrency mining. Just a year ago, the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing addressing the environmental effects of cryptocurrency mining, with a particular focus on the process’s use...more