The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (“TCEQ”) recently published an Interoffice Memorandum (“the Memorandum”) that directs the agency’s offices how to handle reporting of spills and releases, including the discovery of historic contamination. It defines “historic contamination” as a “release” from an inactive source, whether of known or unknown quantities, citing as an example, contamination discovered during excavation activities ...
Related Practice Groups Environmental During the 78th Legislative Session, the Texas Legislature passed a massive tort reform bill, H.B. 4, that will result in sweeping changes not only to tort cases but also to litigation generally. Several changes critically impact environmental cases. The purpose of this memorandum is to alert you to some of these changes ...
Chemical manufacturers, processors, and distributors, petroleum refiners and distributors, and other manufacturers are potentially affected by a “policy clarification and reporting guidance” issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on June 3rd, 2003, relating to § 8(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) ...
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002: SEC Adopts Final Rule to Mandate Electronic Filing and Website Posting for Forms 3, 4 and 5 As required by Section 403 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) has adopted final rules and form amendments mandating the electronic filing, and website posting by issuers with corporate websites, of beneficial ownership reports filed by officers, directors and principal security holders under Section 16(a) of the Securities E
On Jan. 29, the National Bank of Ukraine adopted a regulation on the procedure for granting residents individual NBU licenses to transfer hard currency outside Ukraine as payment for monetary assets. According to this new regulation, prior to making a payment in hard currency to a non-resident seller of monetary assets - except for external government T-bills -, a resident purchaser must obtain from the NBU an individual license authorizing the remittance ...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) recently issued a proposed rule and a notice of future of rulemaking under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) regarding standards for “all appropriate inquiry,” which are important to a variety of businesses, especially those engaged in real estate transactions ...
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers recently issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the definition of “waters of the United States,” which was published in the Federal Register on January 15, 2003. EPA and the Corps will be accepting comments that the agencies will use in developing rules clarifying what waters are subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act ...
In our October 22, 2002 Alert, we discussed the importance of the new compliance history rules of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (“TCEQ”). Basically, a company’s compliance history will affect permitting, availability of innovative programs, and enforcement, including unannounced inspections. Be alert that the TCEQ compliance history rules ignore traditional distinctions between mergers and assets acquisitions involving successor liability ...
In our October 22, 2002 Alert, we discussed the importance of the new compliance history rules of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (“TCEQ”). Basically, a company’s compliance history will affect permitting, availability of innovative programs, and enforcement, including unannounced inspections. Be alert that the TCEQ compliance history rules ignore traditional distinctions between mergers and assets acquisitions involving successor liability ...
1. APPLICATIONS FOR THE MACT HAMMER PERMIT DUE MAY 15, 2002 Section 112(j) of the federal Clean Air Act requires that major sources of hazardous air pollutants (HAP) submit an application for a Title V Operating Permit Revision if the source is a member of a source category for which the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not adopted a Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standard within 18 months after the deadline for development of that standard ...
If you are a building owner planning any renovation or demolition, under a new Texas law, you must demonstrate that you have an asbestos survey before your city will issue a building permit for the project. Asbestos surveys by licensed asbestos inspectors have been a requirement for public buildings for some time; the new statute is intended to publicize and enforce that requirement. Each city has its own requirements for what must be shown to get a permit ...
On January 9, 2002, in Chao v. Mallard Bay Drilling, Inc., the United States Supreme Court concluded that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's ("OSHA") authority to maintain workplace safety for "uninspected" vessels (such as offshore drilling rigs) is not pre-empted by the Coast Guard's power to control maritime operations ...
On January 11, 2002, President Bush signed the “Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act” (the “Act”). As its name suggests, the Act provides relief to small businesses and funding for Brownfields (“real property, the expansion, re-development, or re-use of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant”) ...
