A bill making its way through the New Jersey Legislature seeks to correct an unintended consequence of the single-use bag ban.
Since the ban on single-use plastic bags began in May 2022, those who have their groceries delivered receive them in reusable bags for each delivery instead of single-use plastic bags. However, for this subset
Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a writ of mandamus to the Center for Biological Diversity, imposing a deadline on EPA to issue an “effects determination” concerning the potential impacts of the pesticide cyantraniliprole. This effects determination was supposed to be issued before EPA registered the pesticide. Unfortunately, EPA did not do
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (“HKMA”) released a research report last week showing evidence that about one-third of global corporate green bond issuers are reaping the benefits of issuing green bonds without cutting down their greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions. This type of ‘greenwashing’ behaviour impedes progress on combating climate change and
Cookware sold in California will be required to have chemical ingredient information disclosed on the product website by the new year. While part of a wave of legislation focused on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”), the California Safer Food Packaging & Cookware Act of 2021, which was signed into law by Governor Newsom in
Following an announcement at COP27 by President Biden, the EPA issued a supplemental proposal to reduce methane and other harmful emissions from new and existing sources in the oil and gas industry. In its regulatory impact analysis for the supplemental proposal, EPA included a sensitivity analysis detailing a revised methodology and new estimates for
Biotechnology: USDA Secretary Releases Statement on U.S.-Mexico Corn Trade After Meeting with Mexican President
On November 28, 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) published a statement from Secretary Tom Vilsack regarding a meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador addressing his December 2020 decree, which called for the
The third version introduces several new disclosure recommendations ahead of what is supposed to be a “Paris moment” for biodiversity in Montreal.
By Paul A. Davies, Michael D. Green, James Bee, and Austin Pierce
As environmental ambitions continue to grow, much attention has focused on climate. A key focal lens for that has been the annual Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, including the recently concluded negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh (COP27). However, COP27 also included days focused on cross-cutting issues, such as water and biodiversity. This marks part of an important trend in 2022: the increasing prominence of natural capital in considerations of environmental sustainability.
The Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has released several beta version of its framework on nature-related risk and impact management and disclosure (the TNFD framework) this year. The most recent of these updates (version 0.3) was published in early November, days ahead of the COP27 on climate and approximately a month ahead of the COP15 on biodiversity in Montreal. As discussed in our summary of TNFD v0.2, the TNFD Framework aims to establish a standardized risk management and disclosure framework for organizations to address nature-related risks, playing the same role for nature as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) has played for climate.
Some institutional investors, like pension funds, have insisted that their portfolio only include stock in corporations with high ESG ratings. That, of course, has led corporations to look for ways meet that investor demand.
On November 17, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announced that $38 million in grant funding is available in fiscal year 2023 for fish passage projects. The goal is to award this funding to projects that address outdated, unsafe, or obsolete dams, culverts, levees, and other barriers. This funding effort is part of an overall $200 million commitment set out in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and is part of the National Fish Passage Program (NFPP). The NFPP is a voluntary program that provides direct technical and financial assistance for restoration of aquatic organism passage and aquatic connectivity.
The State of Maine is expected to release the Maine Offshore Wind Roadmap in early 2023, and the global offshore wind industry should be watching. Preliminary details from the state’s roadmap—the focus of this post—clearly indicate that Maine is preparing to seize the significant opportunity presented by the Gulf of Maine offshore wind resource.
Maine’s
