The Ninth Circuit reversed a previous ruling that vacated summary judgment for a California city in a RCRA citizen suit brought by an environmental group. The group had argued the city's water wells were contaminated by hexavalent chromium that was in turn transported to city residents through its w...
The United States currently does not have capacity to recycle its waste domestically, nor can it export the amount of waste it once did. Many states are trying to solve this crisis through novel legislation, but states cannot solve this crisis on their own. This Article argues that the federal government should take the lead in developing new law and policy designed to increase national recycling rates.
Plastics pollution has been an issue in the United States since discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch catapulted it to the forefront of news reporting. Regulatory and academic activity around plastics has had a common feature: it focused almost exclusively on one stage in plastics’ linear model and framed the problem as a waste problem.
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, vacated summary judgment for a California city in a RCRA citizen suit brought by an environmental group. The group had argued the city's water wells were contaminated by hexavalent chromium that was in turn transported to city residents through its water distribution system. ...
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a settlement of environmental liabilities must resolve a CERCLA-specific liability to give rise to a contribution action under §113(f)(3)(B), in a lawsuit concerning a landfill in Guam formerly owned by the U.S. Navy. After entering into a consent decree...
A district court granted summary judgment for a utility company in a lawsuit concerning groundwater discharges from coal ash ponds at its power plant in Kentucky. Environmental groups argued that the discharges threatened immediate and substantial environmental harm to a nearby lake and streams, in ...
A district court dismissed a RCRA citizen suit brought against present and former owners of chemical plants for allegedly releasing radioactive slag deposited on landowners' properties in New York. The landowners sought injunctive relief under RCRA, including ordering the plant owners to evaluate ea...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a toxic, environmentally persistent class of chemicals that have been used widely in consumer products. Despite growing evidence of adverse health effects associated with PFAS exposure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not yet promulgated a legally enforceable standard for any of the individual chemicals in the PFAS group. This has resulted in largely unrestricted disposal of PFAS waste and dispersal of these persistent chemicals throughout the environment.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling in a lawsuit concerning the U.S. government's and California's recovery of cleanup costs from a hazardous waste spill in the Sierra Nevada foothills that released toxic amounts of arsenic into local groundwater. Plaintiffs sued the company that had acq...
The Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling ordering mining and finance companies to comply with EPA's requests for information related to cleanup of a contaminated site in Utah. The companies argued that EPA exceeded its authority under CERCLA when it issued the information requests, the requests...