Insights Search

In 2020, President-elect Donald Trump promised to ensure that “America’s most critical infrastructure projects” would not be “tied up and bogged down by an outrageously slow and burdensome federal approval process.” Much of the frustration with the federal approval process is directed at real-world implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and its associated regulations.

Vinson & Elkins attorneys discussed how to obtain and defend key air quality permits for power plants.

On February 8, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published two proposed rules that would expand its regulatory authority over PFAS: one to list nine PFAS as hazardous constituents subject to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) corrective action program (the “PFAS Constituent Rule”) and another to expand the regulatory definition of RCRA hazardous waste to address PFAS releases from RCRA-permitted solid waste management units (the “Definition Rule”).

The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (“COP28”) reached a significant development in international climate policy, ending with the “first Global Stocktake” calling for a “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”

At long last, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) is poised to grant Louisiana authority to issue Class VI permits under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act’s (“SDWA”) Underground Injection Control (“UIC”) program for long-term carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”).

In a move that could have far-ranging implications for projects that require federal permits and rulemaking across the entire federal government, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) published interim guidance on January 9, 2023, to assist federal agencies in assessing the greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions and climate change effects of their proposed actions under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”).