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A new memo from Susan Bodine, the EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), suggests that the Agency will continue to revamp its enforcement activities by placing a stronger emphasis on compliance assistance.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) and the EPA’s proposed amendments (August 24, 2018, Federal Register (FR)) to regulations governing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards (NHTSA) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (EPA) for model years (MYs) 2021–2026 passenger cars and light trucks will likely face legal challenges should the agencies promulgate final rules […]
Sorry, no million-dollar fines or penalties in our latest environmental enforcement roundup … but there are still some six-figure ones! These four recent cases cover compliance slip-ups ranging from risk management violations to spill prevention mishaps, and one company faces a half-million dollar fine.
Stating that the Trump EPA cannot use a general provision of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to negate a specific provision of the Act, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated an Agency final rule that sought to delay by 20 months the effective date of the Obama EPA’s […]
In our first environmental enforcement report for August 2018, there were two fines of over $1,000,000. In our second roundup for the month, there’s another one! Of course, there was also a fine for a mere $350, so it’s a wide range. Take a look at six recent cases and the penalties that were doled […]
In a joint press release, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles, which seeks to establish new 50-state fuel economy and tailpipe carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions standards. The proposed SAFE Vehicles rule would revise […]
Our first environmental enforcement report for August 2018 has summaries of five recent cases—and two of them resulted in penalties of over $1,000,000. It’s an ongoing reminder of the importance of environmental compliance to an organization’s bottom line.
The AGs from eight states plus the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection have together filed suit against the EPA for its alleged failure to implement the Obama administration’s 2016 municipal landfill emissions guidelines (August 29, 2016, Federal Register (FR)) according to the timeline mandated by the Clean Air Act (CAA).
The EPA only recently issued almost all the remaining area designations for the 2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone (only eight counties in the San Antonio, Texas, area have not been designated). Now, with the ink barely dry on those designations, the Agency is facing yet another Clean Air Act (CAA) deadline […]
We recently encountered a list of the 10 most common Clean Air Act (CAA) violations, which included failure of facilities to track the loss of regulated refrigerants from equipment. (Seven of the other violations relate to permits.) In fact, tracking the loss of a refrigerant and recordkeeping in general are major responsibilities under EPA’s refrigerant […]