Monitoring the Environmental, Health & Safety and Energy Landscape
Week of October 26
This week’s environmental and energy headlines highlight the push and pull between development, regulation, and litigation. From permitting reform and nuclear investment to PFAS, data centers, workplace safety, and climate litigation, the issues are familiar, although a new study questioning the environmental benefits of paper straws adds an interesting twist to…
Week of October 12
This week’s environmental and energy stories offered an interesting mix of familiar regulatory disputes and emerging questions about how new technologies and infrastructure are being managed. From drone deliveries and nuclear decommissioning to greenhouse gas reporting, regional energy markets, and the potential reuse of data center waste heat, there was no…
Any employer whose workforce handles hazardous chemicals has a hard date on the calendar: November 20, 2026. That is when the employer-facing obligations of OSHA’s overhauled Hazard Communication Standard, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1200, come due for chemical substances. The overhaul itself dates to May 2024, when OSHA conformed the rule to Revision 7 of…
Week of October 5, 2026
From AI-powered permitting and evolving federal permitting reforms to the continued resurgence of nuclear energy and new legal battles over fuel economy standards, this week offered another reminder that energy and environmental policy remain deeply intertwined with technology, infrastructure, and regulatory certainty. Here are a few developments that caught my…
Week of September 28
The environmental and energy world finished September much the same way it spent most of 2026: debating how to balance environmental protection and economic growth. This week’s stories spanned climate litigation, PFAS regulation, electric grid modernization, workplace safety, and federal efforts to reevaluate environmental review and transportation policies.
Supreme Court to…
Week of September 21
As September winds down, a familiar theme continues to emerge across the environmental and energy landscape: the challenge of balancing growing energy demand with reliability, affordability, and environmental protection. This week’s developments focused heavily on data centers, duck curves (grid impacts), PFAS, renewable energy policy, and the increasingly important role courts…
Week of September 14
As summer officially gives way to fall, this week’s environmental and energy headlines reflected several themes that have dominated much of 2026: data centers, grid reliability, critical minerals, PFAS, artificial intelligence, and the continued reshaping of federal environmental policy. Courts, Congress, regulators, and industry all remained busy as debates continued over…
Week of September 7
As the calendar turns toward fall, last week’s environmental and energy headlines reflected both familiar trends and a few surprises. Data centers, grid infrastructure, nuclear energy, permitting disputes, and environmental regulation all remained in the spotlight. At the same time, I came across a particularly intriguing research project involving discarded oyster…
Week of August 31, 2026
Labor Day may mark the unofficial end of summer, but environmental and energy regulators, courts, and policymakers show no signs of slowing down. Last week’s developments focused on several familiar themes, including federal permitting reform, the ongoing evolution of Clean Water Act jurisdiction, state climate initiatives, the impact of Congressional…
Week of August 24, 2026
This week’s developments highlight the increasingly close relationship among energy security, emerging technologies, and environmental constraints. Nuclear deployment, grid resilience, data center growth, water demand, and chemical regulation are all creating new opportunities and new legal and operational risks.
Army Plans Major Microreactor Deployment
The U.S. Army plans to invest…
