News & Insights

Over two years ago I wrote about a lawsuit filed by a Connecticut-based solar farm developer with a summer home in Martha’s Vineyard seeking to enjoin the Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast. This particular NIMBY (one of no fewer than three NIMBY petitioners challenging the Vineyard Wind project in separate federal lawsuits) alleged […]

Last week, Inside EPA (subscription required) reported that EPA will reopen CERCLA cleanups due to the presence of PFAS on a case-by-case basis.  The article reported on the gnashing of teeth among the regulated community at the prospect of seeing a significant number of sites reopened.  As a card-carrying member of the regulated community, I […]

Late last month, in Munoz v. Intercontinental Terminals Company, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the liability provisions of CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act do not overlap and that, consequently, where oil and hazardous substances commingle, the sole remedy is under CERCLA. As the Court correctly noted, it has long been the […]

ACOEL is proud to announce its newly elected 2023-2024 Officers and Regents, all of whom are active members of the College. Learn about our new officers.

Just this month, on October 11, 2023, EPA issued its final rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requiring a wide range of companies to report and retain records of extensive PFAS data. The rule will take effect November 13, 2023. It initially may seem like a good idea, except that the scope of […]

The old saying goes “water in the East is for drinking and water in the West is for fighting over!”  As a decade of drought conditions continue in the West, litigation has increased over the reduced supply of water.  Most of this litigation centers on the availability of water supplies from rivers and their tributaries.  […]

Although most insurance carriers do not speak in terms of global warming, the insurance market is making rapid changes in response to increased storms, tornadoes, rain, flooding, wildfires and other natural disasters. Because insurance (or the lack of coverage) impacts environmental settlements, property purchases/sales, and property ownership, this article addresses the major trends that will […]

Effective March 1, 2023, the Chinese government abruptly lifted travel restrictions imposed to combat the COVID pandemic. In August I visited China with one of my students, my first visit in more than four years. Five of the six students who initially planned to accompany me dropped out after the U.S. State Department on June […]

The Michigan Court of Appeals issued a decision that may upend our usual notion that environmental regulation does not ordinarily give rise to an inverse condemnation claim. In Krieger v. Dep’t of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, the court denied the state of Michigan’s motion for failure to state a claim, which argued that plaintiffs’ […]

As far as I know, this headline is false.  But is it so hard to imagine?  EPA actually maintains an “artificial intelligence inventory” that claims EPA has developed “a proof-of-concept to improve enforcement of environmental regulations through facility inspections by the EPA and state partners. The resulting predictive analytics showed a 47% improvement of identifying […]

EPA is publishing its final rule specifying the role of States and Tribes in the Federal licensing or permitting of activities that may result in a “discharge” into a “Water of the United States”. Like EPA’s recent tenth attempt to define “Waters of the United States” , EPA’s Water Quality Certification rule is almost certainly […]

Sam Hess of Inside EPA reports that EPA and the Corps of Engineers are going to apply their tenth, post-Sackett, attempt to define Waters of the United States only in the states and territories that aren’t subject to injunctions in the cases that challenged EPA’s and the Corps’ ninth attempt. In the 27 states where the […]