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Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Administrative agencies sometimes issue regulations that have the effect of overruling state law — and sometimes that is the sole effect of the regulation.  This proved quite controversial during the Bush Administration, which used agency rulemaking efforts to cut back on state tort law.  The ABA has a adopted a new […]

In June, I wrote about a settlement between EPA and environmental groups that requires EPA to publish guidance on the implementation of National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and to propose a rule to collect more information on these operations. In that post, I cited numbers from EPA […]

CPR Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies was recently on Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview talking about oil spills in the developing world, the power of big companies in small nations, and the broader picture of resource extraction and its effects on people. Said Bratspies: “any oil company that doesn’t cut the same corners that the worst player […]

In the past 15 months, the combination of President Obama’s Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration Executive Order and the EPA’s Bay-wide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process has established a framework for ensuring accountability and success in Bay restoration efforts. No aspect of this new framework is more important than the Bay states’ and the […]

The American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade association that represents chemical industry interests and is heavily connected to the plastics industry, filed a Request for Correction Monday on the EPA's Chemical Action Plan for Bisphenol A (BPA). The request, filed under a provision of the Data Quality Act (also referred to as the Information Quality Act), […]

It turns out there’s more than one way an offshore oil rig can kill a fish. Even when they’re not spewing oil into the ocean, oil rigs kill vast numbers of fish and other aquatic organisms in their daily operations by sucking them up into their cooling water intake systems, where they get squashed against screens […]

Cross-posted from Flatt Out Environmental. As expected, the EPA’s “tailoring rule,” under which it proposes to regulate stationary sources of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA) only if they produce over 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent forcing per year, has been challenged in court by numerous organizations. These include industry, several states […]

The Minerals Managements Service’s coziness with an industry it was supposed to be monitoring has brought attention back to an all-too-pervasive problem: regulatory agencies becoming “captured” by the regulated industries. This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts is holding a hearing on “Protecting the Public Interest: Understanding the Threat […]

You may have read of a letter sent by 31 Representatives to the EPA today to complain about coal ash regulation. I wasn’t planning on dignifying it with a response, but sometimes something just calls out for a little highlighting. Like when the members write: “States have been effectively regulating CCRs” That’s actually a case […]