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

On August 14, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) released a redacted copy of its opinion in Sinclair Wyoming Refining Co. LLC v. EPA,¹ in which the D.C. Circuit upended the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA” or the “Agency”) overly restrictive treatment of the Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) program’s small refinery exemption (“SRE”) and mostly vacated a series of denials issued by EPA in 2022 to companies petitioning for the SRE.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a final rule (the “Rule”) that substantially expands its Risk Management Program (“RMP”) regulations aimed at preventing chemical accidents.

This program will highlight what you need to know about how these new rules intersect, new compliance and enforcement risks, and how to plan now for operations and upcoming transactions.

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”).

On December 28, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) granted Louisiana primary enforcement authority (“primacy”) under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act’s (“SDWA”) Underground Injection Control (“UIC”) program to permit Class VI wells, which became effective on February 5, 2024.

On February 12, 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) released its final rule revising its permit regulations for “take” under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA), an overhaul that has been several years in the making.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published a proposed rule to assess and collect billions of dollars in methane “waste emission charges” from the oil and gas sector.

Carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”) projects represent a critical pillar in many companies’ strategies to navigate the low-carbon transition.

On August 29, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) released the text of a rule further revising the definition of “waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”) that the agencies had finalized earlier this year (the “January 2023 Rule”).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA” or “the Agency”) this week released its final Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) “Set Rule”.

On June 3, 2023, President Biden signed into law the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (“the Act”), which includes modest changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), among other things.