The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office expanded the Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program to include innovations in any economic sector that are designed to make progress toward achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, increased the filing limitations for petitions under the program, and extended the duration of the program.
United States v. Eastman Chemical Resins, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00867-MJH (W.D. Pa. May 24, 2023). Settling CWA, CAA, and RCRA defendants must perform injunctive relief, including conducting a third-party environmental audit, implementing effluent limit violations response requirements, performing facility specific work and repairs, completing comprehensive stormwater and groundwater control plans, and implementing a RCRA-based training program and daily inspection requirements; as well as pay a $2.4 million civil penalty in connection with alleged violations at a hydrocarbon resins manufacturing facility in Jefferson Hills, Pennsylvania.
EPA Region 9 proposed to reissue a general NPDES permit for water discharges from facilities classified as low threat located in the Navajo Nation.
The Department of State and NOAA seek public comment on the proposed scope for the upcoming United States Ocean Acidification Action Plan, which will highlight leadership in reducing carbon emissions; strengthening monitoring, research, and coordination research efforts; and investing in adaptive measures.
EPA and NOAA proposed to find that Michigan has satisfied all conditions the agencies established as part of their 1997 approval of the state’s coastal nonpoint pollution control program under the CZMA.
The U.S. Geological Survey announced that it, in collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada and Mexico’s La Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad, will undertake a two-year regional assessment of biodiversity and climate change, culminating in the first-ever assessment report addressing these two challenges together for the United States, Canada, Mexico, U.S. territories, and Freely Associated States.
EPA proposed to establish federal water quality standards (WQS) for Indian reservation waters that currently do not have WQS in effect under the CWA, with limited exceptions.
EPA proposed to approve revisions to Louisiana's Underground Injection Control Program that would allow permits for and ensure compliance of geologic carbon sequestration facilities as Class VI wells for primacy under the SDWA.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management seeks comment on possible commercial wind energy leasing on the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Maine.
The National Credit Union Administration seeks public input on current and future climate and natural disaster risks to federally insured credit unions (FICUs), related entities, their members, and the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, and on the development of potential future guidance, regulation, reporting requirements, and/or supervisory approaches for FICUs’ management of climate-related financial risks.