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This week, we continue with our 2021 outlook series with a focus on environmental, health, and safety. This year brings a new Presidential administration, and with it will come a host of new programs, as well as some new takes on established programs. The following are a few initiatives that could impact manufacturers in 2021.…

This week we are pleased to have a guest post from Robert S. Melvin, a member of Robinson+Cole’s Environmental, Energy + Telecommunications Group. Attorney Melvin has over 20 years of experience counseling clients on environmental, health, and safety compliance, sustainability, emergency response efforts, site remediation, and development projects. A wide range of clients benefit from his services, including aerospace and other manufacturers, stone and aggregate producers, metal finishers, municipalities, educational institutions, and water and wastewater utilities.

In these days of working from home and managing countless other demands on our time, we offer this post to help you decide whether to add the latest Clean Water Act (CWA) cases and rules to your must-see legal watch list. Since its 1972 inception, the Clean Water Act has prohibited any unpermitted “discharge,” defined as “any addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source.” For more than four decades, agencies and courts have struggled with this CWA liability trigger in various circumstances, as well as the CWA’s vague definition of “navigable waters” as “waters of the United States” (WOTUS).
Continue Reading Binge-Watching the Clean Water Act Cases and Rules

Welcome to 2020! As always, we at the Manufacturing Law Blog are starting the year with our annual forecasts of hot topics. We start the series with our Environmental, Health & Safety outlook.

PFAS

We highlighted per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as a hot topic in last year’s 2019 outlook post, saying, “If you…

Earlier this year, we wrote about EPA’s PFAS Action Plan, the agency’s blueprint for addressing contamination and protecting public health from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The PFAS Action Plan, released in February 2019, details a number of actions EPA plans to take with regard to PFAS, including time frames for implementation. EPA has…

Earlier this year, we wrote about EPA’s PFAS Action Plan, the agency’s blueprint for addressing contamination and protecting public health from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The PFAS Action Plan, released in February 2019, details a number of actions EPA plans to take with regard to PFAS, including time frames for implementation. EPA has…

Over the summer, EPA published a policy document to enhance cooperation between it and the many state agencies that enforce federal environmental programs. The document formalizes a long-standing priority of this administration to, as we previously reported, “rebalance the power between Washington and the states to create tangible environmental results for the American people.”…

My partner Bob Melvin and I recently gave a presentation on environmental, health, and safety considerations in mergers and acquisitions. While it would be impossible to cover our entire presentation in a blog post, I thought it would be good to highlight a few important environmental considerations in developing, negotiating, and finalizing corporate deals.

  • Consider

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On Valentine’s Day, EPA showed a little love for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), announcing a sweeping plan to address PFAS contamination and protect public health. PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals that have been gaining a lot of attention, as described in our 2019 outlook. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the…

This is the last of our three-part series of predictions for 2019. First Matt provided our thoughts and predictions in the labor/employment arena. Last week, Jeff gave our outlook for corporate compliance and litigation. Last but not least, this week I am providing our predictions for hot topics in environmental, health, and safety…

By now, we have all heard about the $289 million verdict against Monsanto in the Roundup litigation. A California jury awarded the sum to Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, a school groundskeeper who claimed that exposure to Roundup contributed to his lymphoma. Johnson claimed that Monsanto’s product was defectively designed and that Monsanto failed to warn consumers…