The Kentucky Division of Waste Management (DWM) has proposed regulatory requirements for the disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TENORM) waste generated from oil and gas development activities containing combined Radium 226 and Radium 228 in concentrations exceeding regulatory limits. The proposed regulations provide criteria for TENORM to be disposed in a permitted contained landfill ...
We previously reported on recent efforts to rescind the Obama Administration’s rule amending the Clean Water Act’s “waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”) definition. This followed, as we also reported, the Sixth Circuit’s nationwide stay of the Obama Administration’s WOTUS rule ...
A successful appeal against a remediation notice has highlighted the difficulties faced by local authorities when trying to secure the remediation of contaminated land. The appeal is only the second appeal to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (SoS) since the contaminated land regime in Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 was implemented in 2000 ...
Congress approved Supreme Decree Nº 2954, on Integral Waste Management (the “Regulation”) within the framework of article 344 of the Constitution, which provides that the State shall regulate the internment, production, commercialization and use of techniques, methods, input materials and substances that affect health and the environment ...
The Federal Environmental Agency (“IBAMA”) published Ordinance No. 01/2017, which provides for the improvement and unification of the procedures of suspension and/or blocking of the access to the Forest Origin Document (“FOD”) module. FOD is an instrument of the National Control System of the Origin of Forest Products (“SINAFLOR”) for the control of transportation and storage of forest products. In this sense, Ordinance No ...
On June 27, 2017, the US EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers took the first of two steps to narrow the Clean Water Act’s scope. The agencies proposed a rule rescinding the Obama Administration’s 2015 Clean Water Rule defining “waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”) and replacing it with its prior definition ...
In November of 2016, San Francisco residents voted to pass a new law ("Proposition E"), effective July 1, 2017, that transfers back responsibility from private property owners to the City of San Francisco to maintain and care for street trees and surrounding sidewalks damaged by the trees. The City had taken care of trees several decades ago, but then shifted responsibility back to property owners after that (during a time of budget crisis) ...
The Macedonian Competition Commission imposed a EUR 5.8 million fine on PIVARA SKOPJE AD and EUR 2.7 million on PRILEPSKA PIVARNICA AD, for allegedly entering into restrictive agreements with their distributors. According to the Commission, PIVARA SKOPJE AD entered into sales and distribution agreements which contain resale price maintenance provisions, limiting the distributors to freely set their resale price ...
The Chilean Economic Development Agency, Corfo, and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency, InvestChile, have announced the opening of the first call for national and foreign companies, to express their interest in manufacturing lithium products, such as battery cathodes and electrolytes. Companies that are selected will be guaranteed 25 per cent of US producer Albemarle’s lithium production at the lowest cost available in the market ...
The Philippine Court of Appeals (CA) denied the petition by NGO Ang Aroroy ay Alagaan, Inc. and certain individuals, for the issuance of a writ of kalikasan against Filminera Resources Corporation, and its directors and officers. The petitioners have claimed that Filminera, which operates in the Philippine province of Masbate, had been causing environmental damage in the conduct of its mining operations in violation of local law, and that a writ of kalikasan should be issued ...
The Oberlandesgericht Celle has recently adopted a decision that is likely to be of particular interest to hospitals which are not, in principle, public contracting authorities within the meaning of the law, but which are used by public authorities to pay more than 50 percent for the construction of hospitals pursuant to Section 99, 4 of the GWB (decision ref. 13 G 8/16). In the decided case, the client planned to modernize a hospital in three construction phases ...
On March 23, 2017, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from oil and natural gas production and storage facilities. The regulations, which focus on methane emissions, represent the most aggressive effort by any U.S. jurisdiction to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from oil and natural gas production ...
A federal court in the District of Columbia has ordered the U.S. EPA to complete its review of air toxics emission standards for 13 source categories by June 30, 2020. Under the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, EPA must set maximum achievable control technology ("MACT") standards for stationary sources of hazardous air pollutants. The agency must review and, if necessary, revise those standards every eight years. 42 U.S.C. §§ 7412(d)(6), 7412(f)(2) ...
The courts’ widening of liability for polluted land and groundwater continues. From two new rulings it can be understood that taking responsibility in agreements can be held against the company that has chosen to be responsible. The fact that a person who pursues an activity or takes a measure (an “operator”) which results in pollution is also liable for the pollution is made clear in chapter 10 of Sweden’s Environmental Code ...
Resale price maintenance and price-fixing has been and still is under scrutiny by the Croatian Competition Agency (the "Agency"). Carrying on from a number of high-profile cases, in February 2017 the Agency fined Gorenje Zagreb, a subsidiary of Slovenia's premier manufacturer of household appliances for HRK 1,557,000 (approximately EUR 206,000) ...
The California State Water Resources Control Board issued a notice today that all water users diverting water in California under Water Rights Permits, Licenses, Stockpond Certificates and Registration for Livestock Stockpond, Small Domestic or Small Irrigation uses must submit their annual water use reporting for the 2016 calendar year by April 1, 2017. All such reports must be filed online via the Report Management System (RMS) located at https://rms.waterboards.ca.gov/ ...
On August 1, 2016, the legislative rule promulgated to implement the Aboveground Storage Tank Act became effective. The Rule is 63 pages long and contains detailed requirements for registering, designing, installing, operating, maintaining and closing tanks subject to the AST Act. The following is a handy reference list of the more significant compliance deadlines established in the Rule ...
Industrial facility owners and operators in West Virginia should be aware of new reporting requirements that will soon go into effect. In addition to currently mandated notifications to federal, state, and local agencies after certain events occur, some facilities will soon be required to notify the state within 15 minutes of discovering specific types of emergency events or be subject to a fine of up to $100,000 ...
In the latest development relating to West Virginia’s new aboveground storage tank (“AST”) legislation, yesterday afternoon the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State its finalized Interpretive Rule outlining mechanisms for compliance with the imminent deadlines under the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), W. Va. Code §§ 22-30-1 et seq ...
The U.S. General Services Administration recently added Green Globes as an additional third-party green building certification system for federal government construction projects. With this addition, many are now asking about the difference between Green Globes and LEED. Green Globes has emerged, in some parts of the U.S., as a rival building option to the more well-known Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (“LEED”) system ...
With the spotlight recently cast upon it by the burgeoning Marcellus and other shale reserve developments, the oil and gas (“O&G”) industry has found itself increasingly the object of regulatory scrutiny. While the majority of commentary and new regulation has focused on the O&G industry’s fracking activities, the heightened regulatory attention has led to new levels of exposure in areas which the industry has traditionally not had extensive entanglement ...
Late yesterday afternoon, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) published on its website what it characterizes as a “rough draft” of its forthcoming emergency[1] rule (the “Draft Rule”), which is 79 pages in length. This Draft Rule comes nine days after the agency’s release of an Interpretive Rule implementing, in part, the new Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), a summary of which is available here ...
On February 3, 2015, House Bill 2574 (“HB 2574”) was introduced in the West Virginia Legislature. HB 2574 proposes to remedy the unintended consequences to businesses created by the passage of the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”) during the 2014 regular session of the Legislature immediately following the contamination of the Elk River from Freedom Industries, Inc ...
