May 31, 2023 By: Marissa Alkhazov Governor Jay Inslee signed HB 1047, Washington State’s Toxic-Free Cosmetic Act (the Act) into law on May 15, 2023. The Act bans some of the most concerning chemicals added into cosmetic and personal care products, including PFAS, phthalates, formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasing agents ...
The European Commission (“EC”) is collecting data and feedback from stakeholders about the European Union’s (“EU”) current rules on packaging and packaging waste. Based on these insights, it will propose an amendment to the current rules that aim to ensure a properly functioning market for packaging recycling and diminishing packaging waste ...
The Tokyo Olympic Games have been dubbed the greenest Games to date. Despite some criticism levelled against the claims of their eco-friendly nature, it is notable that the Tokyo Olympics Organising Committee has made significant strides to minimise the Games’ carbon footprint ...
On January 20, 2021, Supreme Decree No. 8/2019 of the Ministry of the Environment was published in the Official Gazette, setting forth collection and valorization goals and other associated obligations for tires in order to prevent the generation of such wastes and to promote their reuse, recycling or other types of recovery, in the context of Law 20,920 on Extended Producer Responsibility. Regulated object: tires This decree is applicable to tires introduced into the market ...
Do environmental considerations feature in your business plans? If not, then perhaps it is time they did. Minimising waste, reducing energy consumption and decreasing the environmental impact is not just good for the planet but can lead to increased profits. That is the message from the Scottish Executive in its paper 'Going for green growth: a green jobs strategy for Scotland' ...
In its 1993 decision in U.S. v. Rohm & Haas, the Third Circuit held that EPA could not recover CERCLA oversight costs for supervising a private party removal action. The Court reasoned that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in National Cable Television Ass’n, Inc. v. U.S. barred recovery of such costs “unless the statutory language clearly and explicitly requires that result ...
Decree-Law 30-A/2022was published on 18 April to approve the exceptional measures intended to ensure the simplification of the procedures for producing energy from renewable sources. These measures came into force on 19 April and will be in force for a period of 2 years. These exceptional measures have been published by the Government in the current macroeconomic and geopolitical situation ...
On Wednesday, March 22, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a compliance order issued under EPA’s Clean Water Act enforcement authority to individuals for allegedly filling part of their property without the necessary “dredge and fill” permit could be challenged in federal district court. The ruling marks a major loss for EPA’s enforcement practices under the Clean Water Act ...
Total Maximum Daily Loads, or TMDLs, serve a profoundly important function under the federal Clean Water Act. They provide regulators with a systematic and comprehensive mechanism for identifying all sources and causes of water quality impairment, and then calculating the reductions needed to address the impairment in an equitable manner. But for TMDLs to be effective, they must be derived in a legally and technically defensible manner ...
We previously reported on oral arguments before the Supreme Court regarding which court has original jurisdiction to hear challenges to the Clean Water Act’s “waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”) definition. On January 22, 2018, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense that only district courts have original jurisdiction to hear such challenges ...
It was this time last year that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt created a Superfund Task Force to “provide recommendations . . ...
Benefit corporation legislation created a new kind of corporation that is required to pursue a social and environmental mission in addition to creating economic benefits for its shareholders. California pioneered the model benefit corporation legislation with its passage in 2011, and Delaware passed its own form of benefit corporation legislation in 2013 ...
The Oregon legislature is currently considering, as part of its February 2022 session, three bills that form a comprehensive set of changes to the Oregon Forest Practices Act (Senate Bill 1501), create a small forestland owner tax credit (Senate Bill 1502), and update the forest harvest tax (House Bill 4055). The bills stem from negotiations between private forestry companies, small woodland owners, conservation groups, and fishing organizations ...
This article aims to analyze the state of the Argentine mining industry, its growth potential, and briefly comment on certain situations in the current legal-regulatory system, which could be improved to accelerate its post-quarantine development. 1. The economic and mining situation in Argentina pre COVID-19 In Argentina, the pandemic has motivated the issuance of preventive and mandatory social isolation measures (the "Quarantine") ...
Local authorities will welcome a decision by the Court of Appeal that Powys County Council is not liable for contamination caused by a former landfill site operated by its predecessor. However, the decision is not such good news for landowners. Background Mr Price and Mrs Hardwick own a farm near Builth Wells in mid-Wales ...
While immediate pandemic pressures may moderate short-term corporate progress on climate risk assessment and disclosure, there is little to suggest that regulatory and investor expectations have significantly diminished in 2020. Corporates may face increasing investor pressure to make a 'Paris-aligned' business strategy a central pillar of their corporate rebuilding and recovery plans, with a measurable pathway to net zero emissions ...
Uganda has taken a bold and long overdue step to revamp its 24-year old environmental law, the National Environment Act (Cap. 153) (the “NEA”). An amendment was necessary given the massive infrastructure projects in the energy sector, the planned infrastructure of a refinery and pipelines in the oil and gas space, the imminent production of oil, increasing urbanisation and the consequent pressures on land, and climate change ...
On May 5, 2020, two (2) relatively rare notices of violation involving marijuana smoke were filed with the California Department of Justice. I refer to them as rare, because in the one year period prior to these notices (May 1, 2019-May 8, 2020), there have only been four (4) notices of violation filed involving marijuana smoke. That is a miniscule number considering there were two thousand four hundred and ten (2,410) 60- day notices of violation filed in 2019 ...
