On November 4, 2021, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) announced that it is pausing all requests for coverage under 12 nationwide permits (NWPs) issued earlier this year, including widely used permits for utility and oil and gas projects, among others. The announcement followed a California district court’s decision vacating the Section 401 Water Quality
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UK product safety regime: OPSS publishes its call for evidence response
By Adam Hedley & Amber Davies
In March 2021, the Office for Product Safety and Standards (“OPSS”) published a call for evidence seeking views on possible changes to the UK product safety regime post-Brexit, including to address new methods of manufacture and distribution, new products and technologies such as artificial intelligence, and environmental considerations. Following the deadline to respond to the…
Post-COP26: A follow-up briefing on key business issues
Prior to COP26, we published an article that identified several issues being discussed at COP26 that could be of critical importance to business.
During COP26, we followed the developments of these issues in a special Viewpoints series.
And now that COP26 is concluded, people are asking: What impact did it have? Where does the…
OSHA’s vaccine ETS has arrived for large private employers
On October 21, 2021, we published an article called “Waiting for OSHA: pending vaccine ETS and increased enforcement.” In the article, we discussed the then-pending Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) regarding vaccinating the workforce OSHA was tasked with developing by President Biden in his “Path Out of the Pandemic” memorandum. The ETS is scheduled…
What does success look like at COP26?
By Claude Brown
As with any multinational showcase meeting, delegates at each COP (and especially its host) want the meeting to be seen as a success. As the 26th COP approaches, it is in some ways salutary to look back at previous COPs and identify those outcomes which made them a hallmark meeting and the failures which made others…
Waiting for OSHA: pending vaccine ETS and increased enforcement
Since President Joe Biden issued his “Path Out of the Pandemic” memorandum and Executive Order 14042 on September 9, 2021, employers have had to navigate piecemeal instructions on vaccine mandates. For example, federal contractors and subcontractors received vaccine mandate guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force on September 24, 2021. However, employers should not…
COP26 – The benchmarks for its success or failure
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established at the first Rio Earth Summit in 1992. More than 200 countries are “party” to the UNFCCC, and these countries meet every year (with the exception of 2020, due to COVID-19) at the Conference of the Parties (COP). The meeting of the UNFCCC in…
U.S. EPA releases Roadmap to address PFAS contamination
On October 18, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) Strategic Roadmap (the Roadmap) detailing steps that the EPA plans to take to address PFAS contamination. PFAS are largely unregulated, but studies linking certain PFAS to health issues and their persistence in the environment and human…
UK plan for Waste Shipments updated
The UK plan for shipments of waste (the Plan) has been amended, with the key update being to emphasise that interim disposal operations should be carried out in the UK wherever possible.
Earlier this year Defra consulted on various amendments to the Plan for shipments of waste and those amendments have now been adopted following…
Environmental, Social and Governance Legislation in the Biden Era: The Climate Risk Disclosure Act of 2021 PART II: Oil and Gas Sector
In a previous post, we reported on the Climate Risk Disclosure Act of 2021 (the “Act’) being placed on list of all bills reported from committee and eligible for House floor action, some sweeping changes required by that Act, and the Act’s uncertain future in the Senate.
This Part II focuses on the effect…