On May 28, the Biden-Harris Administration issued the Voluntary Carbon Markets Joint Policy Statement and Principles (Policy Statement).  You can find Covington’s analysis of the Policy Statement here.  Jointly announced by the U.S. Secretaries of Treasury, Agriculture, and Energy, and senior White House climate officials, the Policy Statement describes a three-pronged approach to responsible carbon market development and participation: (1) credit or supply integrity, including protections regarding climate and environmental justice; (2) demand integrity, to ensure the credible use of credits; and (3) market-level integrity, including facilitating efficient market participation and lowering transaction costs.  The Policy Statement builds on other recent federal actions, including the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s 2023 proposed guidance for voluntary carbon credit derivatives and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s final climate risk disclosure rule, which requires certain disclosures related to carbon offset purchases, in the Administration’s attention to and elevation of the voluntary carbon market as an important element in the nation’s climate policy. 

In this post, we dive deeper into the voluntary carbon market landscape, implications for business, and additional recent developments. 

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule on May 17, 2024, updating the list of chemicals subject to reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA). EPA’s final rule adds seven per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list…

Action

On May 28, 2024, the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, Energy, and White House representatives published a joint Policy Statement on voluntary carbon markets (VCMs). The Policy Statement sets out seven principles to guide engagement with VCMs, and the principles are designed to ensure that VCMs are effective, fair, and equitable, and instill market…

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Yogi Berra and Lenny Kravitz

In a unanimous opinion filed on June 6, 2024, the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the First District Court of Appeal in the controversial “People’s Park” case, thus upholding the Regents’ 2021 Long-Range Development Plan (LRDP) EIR and clearing the legal path for UC Berkeley’s residential development at the People’s Park site.  Make UC A Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California (2024) 16 Cal.5th 43. (My prior posts on the Court of Appeal’s decision and the Supreme Court’s grant of review in this case can be found here (3/3/23 post) and here (5/21/23 post).)

The European Union has just adopted the  Right to Repair Directive (“R2RD”).  Once it enters into force, the R2RD will require manufacturers of many types of consumer goods to provide repairs beyond the liability period, among other requirements.  This blog post follows up on our previous blog post that discussed the different positions of the European Parliament and Council on the legislative proposal for the R2RD. 

Landscape Issues: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Allocates $5.6 Million for Environmental Restoration Projects on Abandoned Mine Lands
On May 13, 2024, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced it allocated over $5.6 million in grants from funds received through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for eight environmental restoration projects on abandoned mine lands.…