Last week, Judge Scott Skavdahl vacated BLM’s 2016 methane Waste Prevention Rule. 
The Judge spends 10 pages documenting the “loopty-loops” of the litigation surrounding the 2016 Rule and the Trump administration’s efforts to rescind the rule. Here, I’m with him. It’s difficult to review the tangled process of judicial review of this rule without being embarrassed for our judicial system.
Judge Skavdahl then spent 47 pages on the merits. … More
Product stewardship is definitely in vogue. The Daily Environment Report has just noted that the United State Conference of Mayors has adopted a resolution calling for “Extended Producer Responsibility For Products.” I understand the arguments in favor of product stewardship. From an economic point of view, the disposal costs associated with products and product packaging can be seen as an externality. Internalizing those costs would give manufacturers and distributors incentives to minimize those costs,… More
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to publish a Final Rule creating an optional, alternative set of generator requirements for hazardous waste generated or accumulated in laboratories at “eligible academic entities”: (1) colleges and universities; (2) non-profit research institutes owned or affiliated with a college or university; or (3) teaching hospitals owned or affiliated with a college or university.
The Rule will append a new subpart,… More
Two recent federal decisions may aid regulators and activists seeking to hold companies liable under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) for historical soil or groundwater contamination that could migrate as vapor and contaminate indoor air.
On July 28, 2008, in United States v. Apex Oil Company, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois found the owner of a petroleum pipeline strictly liable under RCRA for pipeline leaks that contaminated soil and groundwater decades prior,… More
On October 7, 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new final rule (the “Rule”) that exempts certain recycled hazardous secondary materials from RCRA’s “cradle to the grave” regulatory system.
Hazardous waste is regulated under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). A hazardous secondary material can only be classified as a hazardous waste if it is first determined to be a solid waste as defined in Section 261.2 of the RCRA regulations. Previously,… More