Environmental Law Advisor

The top U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Environmental official has put corporate employees on notice that DOJ is increasing its focus on prosecuting individuals for environmental crimes, including the threat of jail time.

On November 16, Illinois enacted the Reimagining Electric Vehicles Act (REV Act) which states that its purposes include “reduc[ing] carbon emissions, creat[ing] new good-paying jobs, and generat[ing] long-term economic investment in the Illinois business economy.”

On November 2, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed rule involving three separate actions aimed at establishing a comprehensive and more stringent regulatory regime to reduce emissions from oil and gas operations across the United States (the Proposed Rules).

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently made several announcements regarding its goals for investigating, regulating, and remediating Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), a group of chemicals used in a variety of consumer and industrial products since the early 1940s.

“Climate change is an emerging threat to the financial stability of the United States.”

Environmental justice remains a top concern for the Biden Administration.

The scope of the federal government’s enforcement power under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) has been an ever-evolving source of litigation and confusion for industries across the country.

On August 10, 2021, the Senate passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill that included many pieces of President Biden’s plan, but also contained numerous revisions, reflective of the compromises necessary to pass this ambitious legislation in the Senate.

Courts exist to adjudicate claimed harms. However, not every court can hear every claim.

We often think that environmental regulation comes top-down from Congress and Washington bureaucrats.

Of course elections matter, and executive branch changes may bring real and meaningful policy change.

On April 27, the Biden administration announced new proposed infrastructure initiatives that may enable developers to finally break ground on their “shovel-ready” transmission line projects, including over $8 billion in financing tools from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the administ

On April 29, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker released proposed legislation, SB2896 and HB4074, to set statewide minimum, uniform standards for wind farms and ground-mounted solar energy systems, including setback requirements, height restrictions, and landscape buffer requirements, while maintaining

We have discussed infrastructure resilience, remediation, green technologies, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, we focus on a central theme woven into President Biden’s proposal: equity and environmental justice.

We have previously blogged about President Biden’s infrastructure plan released in late March. The sweeping $2 trillion plan provides a blueprint designed to strengthen America’s infrastructure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

President Biden’s sweeping infrastructure proposal, the American Jobs Plan, takes a broad view of what constitutes infrastructure and tackles many of the issues President Biden highlighted in his campaign, including climate change, the state of the country’s traditional infrastructure.

Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a preliminary step toward requiring limits on some National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) into surface water.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently progressed its effort to stymie the aftermarket tuning of vehicles used for racing and competition in a complaint alleging that Gear Box Z violated the Clean Air Act by selling certain types of aftermarket software that modifies the engine cont

DOL announced last week that it would not enforce a final rule requiring fiduciaries subject to ERISA to evaluate investment opportunities based upon financial performance factors, rather than ESG metrics. 

Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the creation of a new 22-person Climate and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Task Force in its Division of Enforcement.

On January 19, the D.C. Circuit vacated the Affordable Clean Energy Rule (ACE), a rule intended to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emitted from power plants.

Over the past several years, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives have gained popularity among investors, but have gained less traction in federal law.

Regulated industries pay close attention to how regulators use scientific data, because the stakes are high.

As specific policies, legislative priorities and cabinet nominations are revealed in the coming weeks, manufacturers and energy companies are beginning to consider what a Biden Administration will mean for their business.

Citizen suits can be complicated when states engage in regulatory actions after a private party files a complaint. The major federal environmental statutes are largely intended to be implemented by state and federal regulators, and suits by private parties.