Monitoring the Environmental, Health & Safety and Energy Landscape
This post was co-authored by Summer Associate Alexandra Prendergast. Alexandra is not admitted to practice law.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 8-0 ruling limited the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the national environmental law that mandates federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions before making decisions. In the…
As recently reported, on May 19, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior reversed the stop work order it issued on April 16, 2025, thereby allowing the $5 billion, 2 GW, Empire Wind project to proceed. On June 3, 2025, a coalition of Empire Wind opponents sued the Trump administration in federal court in…
On May 12, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an amendment delaying the data submission period for the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) PFAS reporting rule, which will now begin on April 13, 2026, and end on October 13, 2026. Small manufacturers who report solely as article importers will have until April 13…
On the heels of an action by states challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to block federal permits for offshore wind development a lawsuit filed by 15 states on May 9, 2025, claims that the administration misapplied the National Emergencies Act in declaring a national energy emergency. The emergency declaration, announced in a January 20, 2025…
On Monday, May 4, 2025, a coalition of 17 states and the District of Columbia filed suit in Massachusetts District Court over the Trump administration’s efforts to block federal permits for all offshore wind development. The administration’s policy was announced in a January 20, 2025 executive order placing federal permitting of wind projects on hold…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Administrator Lee Zeldin, has unveiled its anticipated strategy for addressing the pervasive issue of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often referred to as “forever chemicals.” While the announcement provides a broad framework, specific details (particularly regarding potential changes to previous rulemakings under CERCLA and the Safe Drinking Water…
For the last 40 years, the Connecticut Transfer Act has primarily driven the remediation of contaminated property in Connecticut—this will change early next year.
Currently, the Connecticut Transfer Act (Conn. Gen. Stat. § 22a-134 et seq.) requires site-wide investigation, and potential remediation, upon the “transfer” of an “establishment” as defined by the Transfer Act.
Below is an excerpt of a legal update co-authored with Real Estate + Development Group lawyer Eden Yerby.
In companion rulings favoring offshore wind developers and federal agencies, the First Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed rulings issued by the District Court (D. Mass.) and dismissed challenges brought by two Vineyard Wind opponents concerning…
On May 10, 2024, extensive revisions recently adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Risk Management Program (RMP) regulations (40 CFR Part 68) will take effect. The revisions, dubbed by EPA as the “Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Rule,” reinstate certain Obama-era provisions previously rolled back under the Trump administration. However, the revisions also enlarge some of these provisions and add significant new requirements, including some that reflect the current administration’s focus on climate change and environmental justice.
The revisions require owners and operators of subject facilities to achieve compliance with most of the substantive requirements within three years (i.e., by May 10, 2027). RMP plans must be updated to reflect new applicable requirements and resubmitted to EPA within four years (i.e., by May 10, 2028). For certain other requirements (regarding emergency response field exercises), the compliance deadline is potentially shorter or longer than these three- and four-year periods, depending on the date of the facility’s most recent field exercise.
Once the rule takes effect, court challenges by both business interests and environmental groups are expected. However, given the unknown outcome of such challenges and the breadth and potential costs of the new requirements, potentially impacted facilities should begin assessing the applicability of the revisions now.
Background
The RMP regulations implement Section 112(r) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (42 U.S.C. 7412(r)), which direct EPA to develop regulations to improve the prevention of chemical accidents at stationary facilities or activities (for brevity, referred to here simply as “facilities”) that use or store “regulated substances” that EPA has identified as presenting the greatest risk of harm from accidental releases. In particular, the owner and operator of a facility with one or more “processes” that manufactures, uses, stores, or handles such a regulated substance in excess of substance-specific threshold quantities must develop and implement a risk management program for all such processes, and document that program in a risk management plan submitted to EPA.
RMP requirements are generally similar to, and in some respects will overlap with, requirements under the Process Safety Management (PSM) program administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). However, while OSHA’s PSM regulations focus on workplace safety, the RMP regulations focus primarily on minimizing the public impacts of accidental releases through prevention and emergency response.Continue Reading EPA Turns Up the Pressure on Chemical Release Prevention and Preparation
Earlier this year, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) released a “Connecticut Environmental Justice Public Participation Guidance Document” (‘the Guidance”) concerning the 2023 amendments to Connecticut’s environmental justice (EJ) statute regarding permitting or other approvals for certain facilities. Although helpful in indicating DEEP’s interpretation of the amended statute (which is not a…
