News & Insights

In the 1967 movie “The Graduate,” a family friend famously tells the title character “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it.” Well, those of us engaged in the plastic space have been thinking about it. And we have a response. […]

It is becoming increasingly difficult to practice law without some knowledge of climate change as well as the law related to climate change. Irma Russell,  Matt Bogoshian, and I recently published an article making the case that climate competence is required for competent lawyering.  My purposes here are 1) to briefly explain the article, 2) […]

Late last month, I noted that the overturning of Chevron did not mean the end of judicial deference to agency expertise. Earlier this week, a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals provided some confirmation that judicial deference to agency technical decisions is alive and well. In Huntsman Petrochemical v. EPA, the court rejected […]

This blog posting is derived from an article I recently published in the University of Missouri, Kansas City Law Review at the invitation of our Fellow and friend Irma Russell, to whom I am indebted for much guidance and counsel over decades. If by chance you are inspired by the below words to read the […]

Our national climate goals of net zero emissions, renewable energy transition, electrified vehicle fleets, clean steel, green hydrogen, and the rest of the package focus on the ramp-up of clean energy sources and end uses. As these initiatives come to full fruition, one could envision a day when the last drop of oil is pulled […]

A federal district court recently issued an Order to enjoin enforcement of California’s Proposition 65 warnings related to titanium dioxide in cosmetics and personal care products. This is the third case successfully challenging Prop 65 warnings on First Amendment grounds, with previous cases involving glyphosate and acrylamide, as discussed in our FIFRA blog. These are […]

The ACOEL webpage “About Us” states that we are to be “Advocates for environmental law and process for a better environmental future.” Allow me to throw down this gauntlet to Members: What “better environmental future” is the College advocating? As we approach the July 4th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, along with the recent […]

Last week, in SEC v. Jarkesy, the Supreme Court ruled that the defendants in a securities fraud case brought by the SEC were entitled to have the SEC’s claims for civil penalties decided by a jury. The question now is how broadly the opinion will be applied. Because the court’s jurisprudence in this area is […]

Monday our nation’s highest court agreed to hear an appeal by seven Utah Counties and a railroad company of a DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision that will likely narrow the reach of the National Environmental Policy Act. The appeal, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County Colorado, et al., is of the […]

The annual release of projections for how long the Social Security trust funds will be able to pay the amounts earned by beneficiaries shows that the gap has grown between what retirees are scheduled to receive and what current workers are paying into the program, indicating that benefit cuts of 20% could start in 2033. […]

For those seasoned rockers, CCR means Creedence Clearwater Revival, but for environmental lawyers, CCR means Coal Combustion Residuals (“CCR”) which is a slurry by-product from the generation of electricity from coal fired power plants.  As the United States sprints toward renewable energy, CCR remains a massive legacy of coal fired power generation.  CCR is usually […]

There appears to be a consensus on the need for more efficient permitting of energy infrastructure to support the nation’s transition to cleaner generation.  But how best to achieve that objective is a matter of controversy.  The regulatory initiatives of the Biden Administration, in some regards, appear to unnecessarily impede rather than to promote that […]