GREENberg bLAWg Posts
Visit the Full BlogWhere the Law and the Environment Connect. Tox of the Town is a blog written by attorneys in Greenberg Glusker’s Environmental Law Group. With years of legal, technical, and business know-how experience, we look forward to providing our readers with timely updates on environmental issues. Subscribe to our blog today to receive updates on changing environmental laws, regulatory and compliance issues, ongoing litigation, and more.
Environmental Groups Bring Suit Against EPA to Require Air Monitoring Along So-Cal Freeways
Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (NRDC), Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and Communities for a Better Environment brought a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for EPA’s approval of the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s (SCAQMD) 2011 Annual Air Quality Monitoring Network Plan on November 1, 2011 (the Air Monitoring Plan). The SCAQMD is the...
Life in the Green Lane – Carpool Privileges to be Given to Qualifying Cars
At the start of the year, California began offering green clean air vehicle decals to purchasers or lessees of cars meeting California’s Enhanced Advanced Partial Zero Emission Vehicle requirements. These decals enable a single driver to drive in the carpool lane. California is limiting the number of stickers to 40,000. The...
Quebec Joins California In Adopting a Cap-and-Trade Program
As our readers know, we have been following the cap-and-trade regulations both domestically and abroad. Quebec recently joined California in adopting a cap-and-trade regulation for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission allowances based on the rules established by the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). WCI is a collaboration of independent jurisdictions, including California, working together to “identify, evaluate and implement emissions trading policies...
Taking Birds Under Their Wing: Bird Conservation Group Petitions Government for Regulation of Wind Turbines
Harnessing the wind – such an attractive notion in these times when awareness of the benefits of clean renewable energy is heightened. Wildlife conservation groups (and in an ironic and hilarious way, hunting groups) are speaking out about an ugly side-effect of wind energy: bird deaths. Yes, that’s right. Hundreds...
Don’t Sink That Battle Ship: New Suit Demands Tighter Rules on Navy’s Disposal of Vessels at Sea
Environmental groups filed suit last week in California federal court against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alleging the agency failed to adequately regulate a federal ship sinking program, which the groups assert pollutes the sea with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The federal program, known as SINKEX, allows the Navy to engage...
San Francisco Superior Court Clears the Way for Cap-and-Trade Enforcement in 2013
On Tuesday, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest H. Goldsmith, issued an order that removes one more obstacle from the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) efforts to implement its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through an unprecedented cap-and-trade program adopted by the agency in October and slated for enforcement in 2013. The court’s...
Cali Leads Clean Car Revolution Again: Comprehensive Advanced Clean Car Rules Announced
The car-obsessed culture in California has driven (ha ha!) agencies to address the issues of climate change and air quality in more frequent, increasingly stringent and multi-faceted ways. In the latest round of regulation aimed at tackling these ever-present issues, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has announced a package of proposed...
A Park with a View: EPA Sets Schedule to Improve Visibility at National Parks
Last week the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in an effort to resolve ongoing litigation under the Clean Air Act with environmental groups over dozens of past due state implementation plans (SIP), agreed to a schedule for taking action on more than 40 state plans aimed at lowering haze in national parks...
Breathing Room: EPA Given More Time For Greenhouse Gas Power Plant Rules
In a letter to the Department of Justice late last week, California and 10 other states, the cites of New York and D.C., as well as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council agreed to give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) an extension until November 30th of this year to create regulations limiting the emission...
CARB Adopts Pioneering Cap-and-Trade Regulation
Last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), in an unanimous vote, adopted the final regulation for its controversial cap-and-trade program, which serves as the centerpiece of the state’s landmark greenhouse gas reduction law, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Assembly Bill AB 32 (AB 32).The program, which has had to overcome hurdles...
A Carbon Tax Down Under?: Australia’s lower house passes the controversial bill
Earlier this month, the lower house of Australia’s parliament (think House of Representatives) passed a series of bills, including the Clean Energy Bill 2011, by a vote of 74 to 72. The bill is known as the “carbon tax.” Starting in July of 2012, approximately 500 of the biggest emitters in the...
Supersized “Green” Projects May Now Enter the CEQA Litigation Fast Lane
Stating that it was “time for big thinking and big projects that put Californians back to work,” Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law two bills, AB 900 and SB 292, aimed at streamlining the judicial review process for large-scale development projects. Introduced in the final days of the legislative session, AB...
California Supreme Says Stay: Cap and Trade Work Allowed to Continue Pending Appeal
Last week, the California Supreme Court ruled to allow the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to continue to work on the cap and trade regulations contained within AB32’s Scoping Plan. We have brought you the blow-by-blow action in this case, and as we blogged, CARB’s implementation of the Scoping Plan was temporarily halted earlier...
EPA Says 2008 Ozone Standard Back In Play
Testifying before a House subcommittee on Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson said her agency would move forward with enforcing the 2008 National Ambient Air Quality Standards(NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the main component of smog, which, thus far, has been held in abeyance as EPA worked to introduce a more...
SMOG Standard On Hold: Obama Orders Withdrawal of Proposed Rules On Ground-Level Ozone
Last week, the White House announced that it would ask the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw the proposed rule which would revise the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone, the main component in smog. The proposed rule would have strengthened the 8-hour “primary” ozone standard to a level within the range of 0.060-0.070...
Building Energy Benchmarking: Are We There Yet?
In a classic case of “the devil’s in the details,” Assembly Bill 1103 (“AB 1103”), which mandated the disclosure of energy-usage data of commercial buildings in certain transactions, has yet to be implemented nearly four years after it was first enacted. The legislation set a deadline of January 1, 2010 for...
CARB Greenlights AB 32 Scoping Plan…Again
On Wednesday the California Air Resources Control Board (CARB) unanimously adopted a supplemental environmental analysis of its 2008 Scoping Plan and reapproved the controversial plan itself. The Scoping Plan is a blueprint for how the State will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020 as called for in...
EPA Rule on Carbon Monoxide Adds New Monitoring Requirement for Metropolitan Roadways, but Standards Will Stay the Same
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its final rule this week affirming the current national air quality limits for carbon monoxide (CO), which describe how much of the pollutant is acceptable in outside air. EPA’s statement said the agency, after a careful review of the science, determined that the current standards for the...
Heavy Duty Greening: Obama Administration Announces New Fuel Efficiency and Pollution Standards
On Tuesday, the Obama administration, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) announced new standards aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increasing fuel efficiency for buses, big rig trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles. This comes on the heels of last week’s similar announcement for cars and light-duty trucks. The program covers vehicles built...
What’s in that Stuff?: EPA Issues Final Chemical Data Reporting Rule
On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the issuance of the final Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The rule will increase the amount and kind of information required to be reported by chemical manufacturers, including increasing the range of chemicals to which the reporting requirements apply, as...
We’ll All Be Driving Cleaner By 2025
President Obama announced today an agreement with thirteen major automakers to commence the next phase of the Administration’s program to increase fuel efficiency standards to 54.5 miles per gallon for cars and light-duty trucks by Model Year 2025. EPA and the Department of Transportation worked with auto manufacturers, the state of...
No Longer Running On Fumes: Air Board Approves $40 Million in Additional Funding for Clean Vehicles
As my colleague posted last month, California’s popular Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) was in jeopardy of running out of funds by this month. The program, funded by California’s Air Resources Board (ARB), provides vouchers or rebates on a first-come, first-served basis toward the purchase of zero-emission or plug-in hybrid cars, and zero-emission or...
LA + EPA + SMOG = LAWSUIT: Environmental Groups Sue EPA for Missing Smog-Related Deadline
On Monday, environmental groups, including Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, Desert Citizens Against Pollution, Communities for a Better Environment and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The suit alleges that EPA ran afoul of the Clean Air Act (CAA) by missing a May deadline...
Cleaning Up: Resolving Your Environmental Liabilities with other People’s Money
David E. Cranston, chair of the Environmental Law Group, was published in Smart Business Magazine regarding how clients can avoid being stuck with cleanup costs in environmental contamination cases. A client of ours faced significant costs in cleaning up property contaminated by the operations of its tenants many years...
No Backwards CEQA: California Appeals Court Finds CEQA Review Required for Effects of the Environment on a Project
The California Court of Appeal in Orange County found late last week that agencies are not required under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to evaluate the potential impact that the present environment would have on a proposed project. If you just read that and rubbed your eyes that is because it seems...
No [Global] Warming Up To A Nuisance: Supreme Court Finds Clean Air Act Preempts Federal Climate Change Nuisance Claim
On Monday, the highest court in the land held in American Electric Power Co., Inc. v. Connecticut that federal common law nuisance claims relating to climate change are displaced (or “preempted” for you traditionalists out there) by the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action authorized by the CAA. The case began in 2004...
CARB’S AB 32 Scoping Plan Environmental Analysis – Take Two
On Monday, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) released a Supplement to the environmental analysis (known as the Functional Equivalent Document) of the 2008 AB 32 Scoping Plan. The Supplement provides CARB’s revised analysis of the alternatives to the greenhouse gas reduction measures proposed in the Scoping Plan, including alternatives to the cap-and-trade program. The Supplement comes...
Running on Empty: California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Program Funds May Be Tapped Out By July
In what the Air Resources Board (ARB) is calling “a wonderful problem to have,” the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) is projected to run out of funds by next month. I don’t think this comes has a huge shock to those of us that are Angelinos. After all, we are pretty accustomed to...
Update #3 on CEQA/AB32 Case: California Appellate Court Temporarily Stays Lower Court’s Ruling
We have previously blogged about Association of Irritated Residents v. California Air Resources Board . You know… the San Francisco Superior Court case brought by environmental justice groups challenging the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) environmental analysis of AB 32. We last reported that Judge Goldsmith had issued a final judgment...
No Second Guessing EPA: CERCLA Citizen Suit Cannot Interfere With Ongoing Cleanup
This week, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) does not give a federal district court jurisdiction to adjudicate claims for past noncompliance with an order issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The decision, Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals, Ltd., affirms that CERCLA’s citizen suit provision...