In wrapping up our three-month long series on the ABCs of the AJP that commenced on Earth Day, we offer some final reflections on the progress and outlook for this monumental public policy initiative.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) was adopted in 1996 to give Congress a more powerful check on agency regulation that outpaces congressional intent. But now, for the first time, Congress has used that powerful authority in reverse. By disapproving a de-regulatory action — the rescission of the Subpart OOOOa new source methane standards for the oil and gas sector — Congress has brought a dead rule back to life. The birth, death, and now re-birth of Subpart OOOOa (often pronounced “quad-O-A”) raises several new and important questions.
This is the twenty-sixth post in our series on “The ABCs of the AJP.”
As we wrap up our blog series on the climate and energy implications of the Biden Administration’s American Jobs Plan (AJP), it is an opportune moment to revisit our journey from A through Z, and reflect on whether the Biden Administration’s proposed investment in infrastructure can set the nation on a path to achieve its 2050 net-zero target.
This is the first of three articles on the Solar Industry and Forced Labor. Here we focus on regulation. Articles in the coming weeks will focus on issues facing importers and their suppliers, and on investors and their requirements.
On June 30, 2021, in Save Lafayette Trees, et. al v. East Bay Regional Park District (Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Real Party in Interest), the First District Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal of a CEQA claim as time-barred because it found that PG&E, a necessary and indispensable party, was not bound to an agreement to toll the CEQA statute of limitations because it was not a signatory. Additionally, the Court upheld the dismissal for failure to state a viable cause of action to all other claims.
On July 14, the European Commission presented its legislative proposal for a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (“CBAM”). This long-anticipated tool is intended to make importers pay for the greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions embedded in the covered goods that they market in the EU. A Covington webinar on the main elements of the proposal and related policy considerations is available here.
On July 21, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the PFAS Action Act of 2011, requiring EPA to establish nationwide drinking water standards for PFOA and PFOS, two of the thousands of PFAS compounds. EPA has previously established non-enforceable drinking water health advisories for PFOA and PFOS of 70 ppt.
The bill also
In June 2021, the Third District Court of Appeal upheld the County of El Dorado’s (“County”) mitigated negative declaration (“MND”) for a bridge construction project against complaints that the project’s construction would block an evacuation route for residents in the event of a wildfire. In its holding in Newtown Preservation Society v. County of El Dorado, the Court reaffirmed precedent finding that the key question for hazards, such as wildfire, in the context of CEQA is not the impact that the existing environment presents to the project, but whether the project would exacerbate hazard risks.
In Linovitz Capo Shores LLC v. California Coastal Commission (2021) 65 Cal. App. 5th 1106, the Fourth District Court of Appeal found that the California Coastal Commission’s (Commission) failure to act on a series of mobilehome renovation permits constituted an approval under the Permit Streamlining Act, despite the fact the Commission’s notice did not specify that the permits may be deemed approved if the agency failed to timely act on them. In reaching this conclusion, the Court disproved of the First District’s opinion, Mahon v. County of San Mateo (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 812 (Mahon), resulting in a circuit split. The Court held that the required notice is what is required by statutory, constitutional, and decisional law under the circumstances.
On March 24, 2021, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) announced that it issued an National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to the Biddle Air National Guard Base (ANGB) (formerly the Horsham Air Guard Station) containing discharge limits of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for the combined concentration of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA)