Late last month, President Obama addressed the United Nations Climate Summit and just a few days ahead of that, EPA announced that it has extended the comment period on the Clean Power Plant proposed rule to December 1, 2014. The proposed rule has been a lightning rod for the climate change controversy in the United States as it focuses on the effects of existing coal-fired power plants. It has also served to draw attention to efforts to move toward renewable sources of power and possibilities and pitfalls there. The proposed rule and related actions proposed by the Obama Administration ...
A combination of factors in Alabama has raised concerns about the reliability of adequate water in various parts of the State in the event of prolonged droughts or significant withdrawals. Industrial users and public water systems would be well advised to become familiar with, and participate in, current efforts by State government and the Legislature to address these problems. Alabama has an abundance of surface stream mileage, and historically has had the water to fill those stream beds. In fact, Alabama is said to have more navigable channels than any other state. (A Treasure ...
Beth Blalock has been named the new Brownfield Coordinator for the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, replacing Madeleine Kellam, who has led the brownfield program since its inception and will retire at the end of 2014. Ms. Blalock is an environmental attorney (UGA, 2003), with a background in environmental and land use law. Her prior experience includes approximately five years as general counsel for the Georgia Conservancy and, previously, with King and Spalding. Beth will begin work with the Georgia EPD within the coming weeks, allowing for at least a two-month ...
Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) touts the success of the State's Brownfields Redevelopment Program. Since its inception in 1997, Florida's Brownfields Redevelopment Act ( Florida Statutes Sections 376.77 -376.85) has been viewed as successfully encouraging the redevelopment of abandoned or underutilized industrial and commercial property. The Brownfield's program provides a mix of regulatory and financial incentives to encourage the voluntary cleanup and redevelopment of qualified sites. FDEP recently released its Annual Report on the ...
An increasingly pitched battle between business and agricultural interests over the blending of ethanol in gasoline has turned its focus to EPA's rulemaking mandate which sets the minimum volume of renewable fuel sold annually in the U.S. This Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has drawn significant attention because opponents of the use of ethanol in gasoline and diesel fuels believe that there is little if any likelihood of congressional action in the near term. The EPA has proposed to reduce the volume of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline this year, while keeping the biodiesel ...
On Monday, June 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a much anticipated decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency (slip opinion) where it affirmed EPA's authority to impose limits for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by major emissions sources that are otherwise required to have a Clean Air Act permit for conventional pollutants. At the same time, the Court rejected the Agency's assertion that it has the authority to impose GHG emission limits on facilities independent of any other obligation those facilities may have to obtain permits. Thus, EPA (and ...
Our firm has recently represented clients in two projects associated with brownfields that may signal an increased willingness on the part of regulatory authorities to facilitate redevelopment of contaminated properties. As individuals and companies around the nation began to reassess the impacts of sprawl, the ability to redevelop brownfield properties provides an opportunity to make these properties productive to the benefit of the new owner directly and the community generally. One project involved the redevelopment of a portion of an abandoned automobile manufacturing ...
On May 22, 2014 the Florida Supreme Court in South Florida Water Management District v RLI Live Oak, LLC, No. SC12-2336 ruled that in circumstances where a Florida Statute authorizes a state governmental agency like the Water Management District to recover a civil penalty in a judicial forum, then the agency must only prove the violation by a preponderance of the evidence. In this case the applicable statue did not specify the agencies burden to prove the violation. The Supreme Court distinguished its previous ruling in Department of Banking & Finance V Osborne Stern & Co. 670 So. 2d 932 ...
In March, EPA published a new Final Rule that revised a 2009 Final Rule addressing stormwater discharges from its Construction and Development (C&D) point source category. The March revision withdrew the numeric turbidity effluent limitation and monitoring requirement and made certain other changes and clarifications. (Federal Register: March 6, 2014 Federal Register) The revised rule results from litigation filed by a number of entities, Wisconsin Builders Association, et al. v. EPA, Case Nos. 09-4113, 10-1247, and 10-1876 (7th Cir.), and specifically from a settlement ...
Federal Court of Appeals strikes down a portion of the EPA's rule limiting a Court's authority for imposing civil fines for equipment failures. While upholding portions of EPA's new rules for air toxic emissions for cement kilns, in a ruling dated April 16th the District of Columbia Court of Appeals struck down the provision that limited the Federal Courts from imposing civil penalties involving citizen suits for violations of the Clean Air Act for unavoidable equipment malfunctions. The Federal Courts previous 2008 decision finding unlawful EPA's earlier attempt to "exempt ...
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