LexMonitor

EPA Releases Final Health Assessment for Tetrachloroethylene (PERC)On February 10, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted the agency’s final toxicological review of tetrachloroethylene. Tetrachloroethylene – also known as PERC, or PCE – is a solvent widely used in the dry...

Ninth Circuit Invalidates State Implementation Plan

California's Central Valley is once again without an approved State Implementation Plan for ozone. On Friday, January 20, the Ninth Circuit held, in Sierra Club v. US EPA, that EPA had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in approving the 2004 plan.The Valley is an extreme non-attainment area for...

US Supreme Court decides AEP

On Monday, June 20, 2011, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in American Electric Power Co., Inc. v. Connecticut. The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and held that the Clean Air Act displaces any potential claim under federal common law to restrain emissions of...

More on Judge Goldsmith's ruling and its impact

As the New York Times notes in this article, Judge Goldsmith's ruling is just part of a national retreat from a cap-and-trade approach.--Morgan

GHG Regs

The most effective enemy of the California Cap-and-Trade regulations is turning out to be the environmental community. First, environmental groups sued to stop the California Air Resources Board from promulgating the cap-and-trade regulation without a further CEQA analysis -- and won. Now, the...

Green Chemistry

There are two mammoth environmental programs wending their way through the rule-making process in California now, CARB's proposed cap-and-trade regulations and DTSC's green chemistry initiative. The latter promises to have a far larger effect on products sold in California even than Proposition...

Declaratory Relief in CERCLA Actions

The Ninth Circuit today held that a CERCLA plaintiff that fails to prove liability for recoverable response costs may not obtain declaratory relief for future response costs that it may incur. In City of Colton v. American Promotional Events, Inc., the Ninth Circuit first affirmed summary judgment...

Ninth Circuit Decides CERCLA Current Owner Issue

In State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control v. Hearthside Residential Corp., the Ninth Circuit answers one of the unanswered questions of CERCLA liability -- is the "current owner" of a CERCLA facility, one of the four categories of responsible parties, the owner at the time a...

Draft Cap-and-Trade Regulations

CARB's new very preliminary draft cap-and-trade regulations are now available on CARB's website. The draft regulations have placeholders for many of the most important provisions, such as how allowances will be distributed, how many will be auctioned and how many will be freely distributed. And...

Final GHG Reporting Regulations Published

On October 30, 2009, EPA published its final greenhouse gas reporting regulations in the Federal Register. The regulations are described below in my September 28 post.-Morgan