Congress in the 2020s has authorized three new environmentally focused grant programs relating to western waters and appropriated $450 million in multi-year funding. The Bureau of Reclamation is responsible for creating and implementing these programs, giving it a new tool and resources for addressing stubborn environmental problems—some caused by the Bureau’s many dams.
Green startups play a crucial role in the transition to a sustainable economy, yet there is a gap in the literature about the legal and policy challenges these startups face. This Article seeks to fill that gap through interviews, surveys, and focus groups with senior law firm partners experienced in advising green startups, senior pro bono counsel and staff, chief executive officers of early-stage green startups, and senior staff at nonprofit legal aid groups.
EPA proposed to promulgate an aquatic life designated use that includes propagation and protective water quality criteria for dissolved oxygen for Zone 3, Zone 4, and upper Zone 5 of the Delaware River.
EPA approved Texas’ revisions to its Public Water System Supervision program that adopted the Agency’s drinking water rules for the Revised Total Coliform Rule and Ground Water Rule.
EPA proposed to establish new and revised human health water quality criteria for certain pollutants in the state of Florida.
United States v. Chattanooga, City of, No. 1:12-cv-00245 (E.D. Tenn. Dec. 3, 2023). A proposed modification to an existing consent decree concerning a settling CWA defendant’s alleged violations with respect to the city's POTWs extends certain deadlines to achieve compliance with the consent decree while adding significant remedial projects that must be completed within five years.
The Federal Highway Administration amended its regulations governing national performance management measures to require state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations to establish declining carbon dioxide targets for the greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation and report on progress toward the achievement of those targets.
EPA proposed revisions to the National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for lead and copper under the SDWA, including requiring water systems to replace lead service lines, remove the lead trigger level, reduce the lead action level to 0.010 mg/L, and strengthen tap sampling procedures.
EPA Region 6 announced an initial revised designation determination that stormwater discharges from the Los Alamos Urban Area (as defined by the latest decennial Census) and Los Alamos National Laboratory property in Los Alamos County and Santa Fe County, New Mexico, are contributing to violations of New Mexico water quality standards and require NPDES permit coverage under the CWA.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) Climate Disclosure Rule has provoked heated controversy on many fronts. Several commenters have argued that the First Amendment precludes the SEC from demanding climate-related disclosures. This Article grapples with the unsettled state of “compelled commercial speech” doctrine, arguing that the rule’s constitutionality should be scrutinized using the prevailing rational basis test, and that even under the intermediate scrutiny test, the rule should be upheld.