On May 12, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal filed a 108-page published opinion affirming a judgment denying a CEQA writ petition that challenged Marin County’s approval of a 43-lot single-family residential subdivision on a 110-acre parcel atop a mountain overlooking the Town of Tiburon and San Francisco Bay.  Tiburon Open Space Committee v. County of Marin (The Martha Company, Real Party in Interest, and Town of Tiburon, Intervenor and Appellant) (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 700.  Apart from its factual background of nearly a half-century of intense legal battles over (and effectively blocking) the property’s development – which the Court described as “this woeful record before us” – the decision is notable for its legal analysis of how CEQA applies when a lead agency’s discretion in considering a project for approval is constrained by legal obligations.  While in this case the legal obligations stemmed from stipulated federal court judgments mandating that the County approve a minimum level of development on the property, the Court’s reasoning and holdings that the scope of CEQA adjusts and is limited commensurate with legal limitations on an agency’s discretionary authority will clearly apply to other contexts.  Most obviously, and topically, they plainly will apply to housing development projects when state housing laws impose legal obligations that limit local agencies’ legal authority to disapprove or reduce the density of those projects.  (See, e.g., Gov. Code, § 65589.5 (the “Housing Accountability Act”).)

As the world continues to dig out from the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic, the aftereffects of the earliest phase of lockdowns continue to be felt, including in the world of CEQA litigation.  While this blog does not ordinarily focus on unpublished appellate decisions, the recent case of Committee for Sound Water and Land Development v. City of Seaside, H049031 (6th Dist., May 9, 2022) is worth a look given its analysis of CEQA’s statute of limitations and its extension by emergency actions of the Judicial Council, as well as its handling of the tricky scenario of what happens when an approving agency is dissolved by operation of law.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week added five PFAS chemicals for a total of six PFAS chemicals to a list of risk-based values. EPA uses these values to determine if response or remediation activities are needed. The five PFAS additions include: hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid and its ammonium salt (HFPO-DA — sometimes referred to as GenX chemicals), perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS). EPA added the first PFAS substance, perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS), to the Regional Screening Level (RSL) and Regional Removal Management Level (RML) lists in 2014 and updated it in 2021 when EPA released its updated toxicity assessment for PFBS.

Tracy Mehan joins Dave and Anna to discuss his work as executive director of government affairs with the American Water Works Association and the flood of water topics inundating the drinking water sector, including new infrastructure funding, affordability as an environmental justice issue, AWWA’s perspective on PFAS and its associated superfund liability question, and updates to the lead and copper rule.

In Gould Electronics v Livingston County Road Commission, 2022 WL 1467650 (6th Cir. May 10, 2022), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals addressed a claim between the responsible party at a Superfund Site (Gould) and a neighbor (Livingston).  The main subject of the dispute was who was responsible for the contamination on the Livingston property. …

Join the California Air Resources Board (CARB), Environmental Law Institute (ELI), Foley Hoag LLP, and Baker Botts LLP for an intimate discussion with CARB Chair Liane Randolph and ELI President Jordan Diamond, two leaders in the field of environmental law and policy.  Both are tackling significant and pressing environmental and public health challenges from different…

On May 15, 2022, the latest revision of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER)  Guideline Regarding the Definition of Agricultural Solar Tariff Generation Units (Guideline) for the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) Program took effect. The Guideline supplements the SMART Program regulations (225 CMR 20.000), provides guidance on how a Solar…

Singapore

On May 12, 2022, Singapore’s Green Finance Industry Taskforce (GFIT) published a second consultation paper on its proposed taxonomy for Singapore-based financial institutions (“Singapore Taxonomy”), which aims to provide a common framework for classification of economic activities upon which financial products and services can be built and combat greenwashing by setting…