Troutman Sanders LLP is pleased to announce that environmental and natural resources lawyer Sean M. Sullivan has joined the firm as a partner in the Raleigh, North Carolina office.
Sean’s practice focuses on compliance counseling and enforcement defense regarding all of the major federal environmental statutes, as well as the preparation of comments on federal and state rulemakings, brownfields redevelopment, and environmental support for the firm’s corporate and real estate practices.
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, who had been holding up Gina McCarthy’s nomination in committee, announced on Tuesday that he won’t support a filibuster against her confirmation on the senate floor. Vitter and other members of the Committee on Environment and Public Works had indicated their dissatisfaction with EPA’s responses to five transparency questions in May.
Support for the Chemical Safety Improvement Act – a vehicle for revising the Toxic Substances Control Act (“TSCA”) – is growing and has bipartisan support in Congress. In the July 2013 issue of Electrical Apparatus, Troutman Sanders attorney Angela Levin states, “I think a big impetus has been the flame retardant industry…That has been one of the focuses that has triggered additional reform efforts.”
Randy Brogdon, Troutman Sanders environmental practice co-chair, was quoted in Law360’s June 25th article on President Obama’s speech which outlined new measures to reduce the country’s carbon footprint. The President tied the controversial Keystone XL pipeline’s fate to the emissions it will cause, a move attorneys say will make it more difficult for the project to win the administration’s approval.“If you read between the lines, its very difficult to come up with a case for Keystone in which there would be no carbon impact going forward,” Brogdon said.
The Supreme Court has granted EPA’s petition for certiorari to the DC Circuit decision vacating CSAPR. The Court will be reviewing the following questions:
(1) Whether the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction to consider the challenges to the Clean Air Act on which it granted relief;
Full disclosure and strict compliance with the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting process under the Clean Water Act (CWA) has its benefits. That was the message delivered in a recent decision by the Federal District Court of Alaska in Alaska Community Action on Toxics v. Aurora Energy Services.
In February, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a proposed rule that requires states to virtually eliminate longstanding, previously EPA-approved air rules governing emissions from “startup, shutdown, or malfunction” (SSM) events. These rules are relied on by all types of emission sources across the country.
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today refused to rehear a decision of a three-judge panel of the court that overturned EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). CSAPR addressed the interstate transport of pollutants emitted by electric generating units located in the eastern two-thirds of the country. The panel decision in the EME Homer City v. EPA case, issued on August 21, 2012, found that EPA had misinterpreted underlying statutory requirements. One of the panelists, Judge Judith Rogers, issued a lengthy and sharp dissent. EPA and state and environmental supporters then asked the panel to reconsider its decision and also asked the full court to rehear the decision on banc. The three judge panel today refused to reconsider its decision, with Judge Rogers again dissenting, and the full court refused to rehear the case en banc, with no judge dissenting.