Environmental groups and the State of California are up in arms over an EPA memo scrapping a decades-old Clean Air Act policy. Will the DC Circuit weigh in on the EPA’s use of “guidance” to drastically shift US regulatory policy?
Twenty-one children are suing the federal government over its failure to address climate change. But does the public have a fundamental right to the environment and is climate change an appropriate issue for courts to address?
Whereas the Refugee Convention does not provide relief for climate change refugees like Teitiota, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) might.
The Northern District of California readies to hear the U.S.’s first federal test case regarding the carcinogenicity of Monsanto’s glyphosate-containing herbicide, Roundup. Controversially, in early January 2019, Judge Chhabria granted Monsanto’s request for bifurcation—agreeing first to litigate glyphosate’s causation to the plaintiff’s cancer and, only afterward, allowing evidence of Monsanto’s alleged efforts to sway agency positions on glyphosate. But can the reliability of scientific studies be determined without considering the institutions that may have housed and/or nurtured them?
This federal district court’s decision [to reverse the de-listing of the grizzly] has angered state officials and sparked a new debate about federalism and institutional competence
It has now been just over 3 years since the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) first informed the public that Volkswagen, at the time the world's largest automaker, had installed ‘cheat devices’ designed to evade U.S. regulators in hundreds of thousands of their cars. Ultimately, the automaker paid a $2.8 billion criminal fine, and 9 executives and employees were charged with violating the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) and Title 18 of the United States code (the main criminal code of the federal government). Interestingly, though, no one was actually held criminally liable for the pollution itself.
Over the summer, a big firm lawyer and a coke company’s senior executive were both convicted of bribing a former state legislator in order to prevent the EPA from listing the 35th Avenue Superfund Site located in north Birmingham, Alabama on the National Priorities List. How did this corruption happen, and what were the underlying causes?
In administrative law, third parties may intervene in agency actions so long as they qualify as an "interested person." The D.C. District Court in a recent decision has articulated criteria for determining administrative standing, and in doing so, identified a clear standard for determining whether a party qualifies as an "interested person." The rule from this case is broadly applicable and may be helpful in enabling third party participation in many areas of environmental litigation.
By Samantha Peppers, Executive Editor
