The court holds that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it failed to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) prior to the permitting of three casinos on the Mississippi coast. Mississippi law requires casinos to be located on floating vessels...
The court affirms a district court holding that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) for a flood control project on the Mississippi River satisfied the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The court first holds that the Corps' SEIS satisfied NEPA'...
The court grants Rhode Island's motion to preliminarily enjoin proceedings before the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in which several state employees sought damages and other relief against the state for allegedly violating the Solid Waste Disposal Act's whistleblower protection provision. The court...
The quest by law abiding pesticide registrants for relief from illegally registered pesticides has taken a new turn. Tacitly acknowledging the futility of urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to initiate enforcement action against bad actors, registrants are now, in epidemic proportion, taking their case to EPA in the form of filing administrative petitions to revoke and/or cancel Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) registrations issued to competitors and alleged to be obtained illegally.
This Article considers the extent to which the United States has made progress in the management of chemicals and pesticides in light of the commitments it made in 1992 to promote sustainable development. While pesticides are types of chemicals, they are managed differently and this Article will employ the legal distinctions between the two. The term "chemicals" refers to substances that are manufactured, processed, or used in commerce, other than those marketed as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, or food additives.
Editors' Summary: When Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA), many in the press announced that this law effectively repealed the Delaney Clause, which they claimed had banned all traces of cancer-causing pesticides in processed foods. This Article analyzes what the FQPA actually did. It begins by describing the history of the Delaney Clause. The clause appears in three statutes, most famously in the food-additive provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).
On June 7, 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reached an agreement with the basic manufacturers of chlorpyrifos to reduce potential risks from exposure to residues from pesticide products containing chlorpyrifos. More commonly known by the trade names Dursban and Lorsban, chlorpyrifos is the most commonly used pesticide in and around homes in the United States.
Editors' Summary: CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) create causes of action for damages to natural resources—for damages "resulting from" a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance, in the case of CERCLA, and for damages that "result from" a discharge or threatened discharge of oil in the case of the OPA. Thus, natural resource damages actions under these acts require a causal link between the release or discharge and the natural resource damage at issue.
On December 14, 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a press release establishing an "interim" human testing policy for pesticides that suspended EPA's long-established policy of using human testing data to establish pesticide tolerances or to determine other human health-protective limits on chemical exposures. The policy was restricted to the results of studies using human subjects sponsored by private companies (so-called third-party studies).
Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), point source dischargers are required to obtain federal discharge permits and to comply with permit limits sufficient to make progress toward the achievement of water quality standards or goals. As water quality standards become increasingly stringent, industrial and municipal dischargers are being pressured to accept permit limits that are difficult, if not impossible, to meet.