Between January 2020 and March 2023, U.S. electronic cigarette sales grew 43%, from 15.6 million devices per month to 22.4 million devices. During this time frame, the portion of sales comprising disposable devices grew from 4 million to 11.9 million per month. The impact upon the environment has been largely overlooked by policymakers.

The U.S. Supreme Court's October Term 2022 had major implications for environmental law, including its most significant Clean Water Act decision ever. Upcoming cases in October Term 2023 have the potential to be just as impactful. On September 25, 2023, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts who provided an overview of key rulings and major take-aways from the Court’s prior term, and discussed cases that have been granted review or are likely to be considered by the justices in the upcoming term.

This Comment responds to an article published in the February 2022 issue of ELR by Jaclyn Lopez. It discusses the significant agricultural benefits afforded by phosphate fertilizers; summarizes the U.S.

This Article explores the relationship between state environmental citizen suit provisions and judicial standing requirements, and analyzes whether the introduction of citizen suits into state statutory law inspired increasingly strict state standing requirements, as occurred at the federal level. Specifically, it identifies how state judiciaries have interpreted standing and aggrievement in response to general, non-media-specific citizen suit provisions, both in the common law and in administrative law.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a toxic, environmentally persistent class of chemicals that have been used widely in consumer products. Despite growing evidence of adverse health effects associated with PFAS exposure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not yet promulgated a legally enforceable standard for any of the individual chemicals in the PFAS group. This has resulted in largely unrestricted disposal of PFAS waste and dispersal of these persistent chemicals throughout the environment.

The Trump Administration has aggressively rolled back prior administrations’ environmental regulations and natural resource policies, and critics of this agenda have turned to the judiciary. A remarkable string of federal court decisions has faulted the Administration for failing to follow the standard for agency policy change articulated in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.

In the past few years, owners of contaminated land, seeking to supplement possible causes of action under the Comprehensive Environmental, Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and under state common law and state statutes, increasingly have looked to §7002(a)(1)(B) of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to shift responsibility for remediation costs to former owners or operators.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Clean Air Act (CAA) represent federal regulatory regimes for protecting the environment. Although each statute initially places administrative responsibility in the hands of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each encourages states, to varying degrees, to take primary responsibility for implementing the statutory regime.

In Environmental Federalism Part 1: The History of Overfiling Under RCRA, the CWA, and the CAA Prior to Harmon, Smithfield, and CLEAN, the history of judicial and administrative decisions relating to overfiling under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Clean Air Act (CAA) was analyzed. The history showed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with limited exceptions, generally was understood to have overfiling authority under RCRA, the CWA, and the CAA. The limited exceptions focused on two situations.

Editors' Summary: This past summer, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 118 S. Ct. 1665, 28 ELR 21119 (1998). The Court held that an environmental group's challenge to a U.S. Forest Service land and resource management plan for the Wayne National Forest in Ohio was not ripe for review. This Article examines how this decision affects the rules for judicial review of national forest plans.