Jenner & Block

April 25, 2026

After Sackett: Federal Wetlands Regulation, the Trump Administration’s Rulemaking, and What Comes Next

Wetlands are among the most productive and protective ecosystems on our planet — filtering water, storing carbon, buffering floods, and sustaining biodiversity. They are also, since the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA, substantially less protected by federal law. By eliminating the ‘significant nexus’ test, Sackett shrunk federal power over millions of acres…
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Environmental Law
April 24, 2026

From Regulation to Litigation: Climate Tort Risk After the Endangerment Finding Repeal

As my colleague Meghan Greenfield discussed yesterday, on February 12 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rescinded its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare, unwinding what it described as the legal foundation for nearly every federal climate regulation of the past fifteen years. The immediate regulatory consequences are significant and well-chronicled:…
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Environmental Law
April 23, 2026

NAAQS: Litigation Trends and Stalled Rulemakings

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA regulates six criteria pollutants through the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“NAAQS”) program. EPA sets primary and secondary NAAQS that states must meet through regulation of stationary and mobile sources. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review the NAAQS at least every five years and revise the standards…
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Environmental Law
April 23, 2026

EPA Endangerment Finding Repeal Upends Federal Climate Regulation

In what it described as “the single largest deregulatory action in US history,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on February 12 repealed its finding under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare—the so-called “endangerment finding.”[1] The decision eliminates not only federal greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles and engines…
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Environmental Law
April 22, 2026

NOT IN MY BACKYARD;

State and Local Obstacles to Renewable Energy Development FEDERAL CONTEXT An unfriendly administration — and a contested legal record On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum invoking his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (43 U.S.C. § 1341(a)) to withdraw the entire outer continental shelf (OCS) from offshore wind leasing…
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Environmental Law
April 22, 2026

The Impacts of Climate Change on Worker Safety

While this year’s Earth Week theme of “our power, our planet” is centered around the renewable energy movement and combating climate change, attention should also be directed to the people tasked with building that future and how to adequately protect those workers who are already feeling the effects of a changing environment. For example, between…
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Environmental Law
April 21, 2026

Oregon’s Extended Producer Responsibility Law: A Constitutional Challenge with Potential National Implications

Earth Day’s theme this year—Our Power, Our Planet—asks us to consider where environmental power resides and how it is exercised. Oregon’s Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act is an example of that question in action. Enacted in 2021, the Act represents an assertion of state environmental authority in a space that the federal government has…
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Environmental Law
April 20, 2026

Earth Week 2026: “Our Power, Our Planet” — and What It Means for Environmental Law

Earth Day 2026 carries the theme Our Power, Our Planet — a rallying cry for people everywhere to reclaim their voice, their rights, and their future. This year’s theme is organized around two pillars that, taken together, define the environmental challenge of this moment. The first is the defense of hard-won environmental protections: across the…
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Environmental Law
April 9, 2026

OSHA Announces Enforcement Stay for COVID-19 Recordkeeping and Reporting Obligations

On March 31, 2026, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a memorandum updating its enforcement policy for COVID-19 recording and reporting obligations. Specifically, the agency announced that it is exercising its enforcement discretion to no longer cite employers for violations of 29 CFR 1904, in particular any employer’s failure to record COVID-19 cases…
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Environmental Law
April 5, 2026

EPA Includes Microplastics on Draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List

On April 2, 2026, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the EPA has proposed to include microplastics as a priority contaminant group in its draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List (“CCL 6”) under the Safe Drinking Water Act (“SDWA”). This would channel greater…
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Environmental Law