The Nickel Report

Depending upon the assets being acquired or project being developed, a well-designed due diligence plan can be a critical component in managing transaction risk both before and after closing or commercial operation. Adeptly managing the due diligence process requires careful thought to appropriate timing and scope at both the front and back ends.

Among the most critical items in ensuring a successful outcome are consulting decision-makers who are driving the transaction and engaging professionals to provide appropriate support well in advance. Too often, key risks are overlooked or not adequately allocated or managed as a result of a rushed or improperly focused due diligence effort. Particularly for assets or projects with an inherently higher environmental, health and safety, or social (EHSS) impact potential, attempting to manage risk through the purchase and sale or development agreements alone also may not suffice. For example, avoiding a risk by carving out particular assets, employing third-party risk management strategies such as insurance policies, and post-acquisition integration or stakeholder engagement plans can be among the more effective means of managing EHSS risk—but these each require careful strategic planning by a team of professionals with the skills and experience to navigate a transaction’s complexities, particularly in a cross-border context.

This summer, California’s State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) adopted amendments to the Underground Storage Tank (UST) Regulations (California Code of Regulations, title 23, division 3, chapter 16). The new regulations, which become effective on October 1, 2018, impose new design and construction, upgrading, monitoring, notification, testing, inspection, recordkeeping, training and reporting requirements on UST owners and operators in California. The State Water Board’s purpose in amending these regulations was essentially two-fold: (1) to effectively make the California UST regulations just as stringent, and consistent with, the federal UST regulations (part 280 of 40 Code of Federal Regulations); and (2) to reduce the risk of groundwater contamination resulting from UST releases.

The phrase “interstate transport” conjures images of planes, trains and trucks carrying people and goods cross-country. But, under the federal Clean Air Act (CAA), the term is often used to refer to interstate air pollution—emissions from factories, power plants, motor vehicles, refineries and other sources that are transported by prevailing winds across state lines, sometimes over hundreds of miles. The interstate transport phenomenon often has posed for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) what the Supreme Court has called “a thorny causation problem: How should EPA allocate among multiple contributing upwind States responsibility for a downwind State’s excess pollution?” EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, L.P., 134 S. Ct. 1584, 1604 (2014). EPA’s efforts to address this issue have yielded, over the last two decades, a series of complex federal regulatory programs imposing increasingly stringent controls on emissions in most states in the eastern half of the country—first the “NOx SIP Call” rule in 1998, then the Clean Air Interstate Rule in 2005, followed by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) in 2011 and, most recently, the 2016 “CSAPR Update” rule. Now, however, EPA, while vigorously defending the CSAPR Update rule against pending litigation challenges, is signaling a fresh approach for potential future interstate transport regulation, an approach that may involve greater deference to states’ analyses and determinations and that may eschew additional broad regulatory mandates imposed by EPA.

The New Source Review (NSR) program of the Clean Air Act requires major stationary sources to go through an extensive, time-consuming, and expensive review and permitting process prior to construction. Among other requirements, such sources are required to install the best available control technologies (BACT) to reduce levels of specific regulated pollutants. The NSR program also applies to existing facilities if they are modified in ways that result in significantly increased emissions.

The pace of enforcement actions has decreased in recent years, but more than a ...

As a former regulator (both as an inspector and an attorney, ensuring compliance and enforcing violations) in the environmental law enforcement space, I read EPA Assistant Administrator Susan Parker Bodine’s recent memorandum entitled Transition from National Enforcement Initiatives to National Compliance Initiatives with great interest. Having numerous facility inspections and enforcement settlements under my belt, I have seen firsthand the interplay between compliance and enforcement. To be sure, the threat of enforcement and the deterrence factor associated with resolving an enforcement action are powerful tools. But, if the end goal is compliance with environmental laws, does the road leading there have to be so scary for the regulated community? Whereas many regulated parties commonly see EPA and other environmental agencies as enforcement machines, this proposed transition to a more compliance-oriented approach may be not only a welcome change, but also an appropriate one that will actually improve compliance. After all, Ms. Bodine’s office is entitled the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA). Isn’t it a good idea to have an equal focus on helping with compliance and on enforcement? And isn’t the point to maximize compliance? Shouldn’t OECA be striving for a world in which its “enforcement” arm goes out of business because it has “assured compliance?” That may be too much for the regulated community to hope for, but the notion of “compliance” initiatives over “enforcement” initiatives is not a bad way to start.

The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently issued two decisions concerning the relationship between the Natural Gas Act (NGA) exclusive jurisdiction provision at 15 U.S.C. § 717r(d)(1) and the administrative review process for state-issued environmental permits for interstate natural gas pipeline projects. These decisions are briefly described as follows:

• In Delaware Riverkeeper et al. v. Sec PA Dept. Env. Protection, et al. (Sept. 4, 2018), the court held that only “final” state agency actions are reviewable under the NGA’s exclusive jurisdiction ...

Each year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center puts out a forecast for the upcoming hurricane season, stressing the dangers posed by hurricanes and the need to prepare. About this time last year, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in South Texas as a Category 4 and resulted in historic flooding. The devastating aftermath of the hurricane still continues. Preparation for and responding to incidents, such as those caused by Hurricane Harvey, has become increasingly more complex and more important than ever.

Weeks after a federal judge called the science behind the alleged carcinogenicity of glyphosate “shaky,” a California state court jury hammered Monsanto with a $289 million verdict, connecting a former groundskeeper’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma to his exposure to the Roundup^® chemical. The August 10, 2018 verdict in Johnson v. Monsanto Co., No. CGC16550128 (California Superior Court, County of San Francisco)—which included $250 million in punitive damages—was the first in the nearly 8,000 Roundup-related cases currently pending against Monsanto, many of which are consolidated in multidistrict litigation in California federal court. However, adding another layer of confusion surrounding the use of glyphosate, a federal court in California recently decided that the state could not require Proposition 65 cancer warnings on products containing the chemical. The intense publicity surrounding the verdict has left retailers whose products contain ingredients that might have been treated with glyphosate wondering whether their products may be targeted next.  

Our regulatory state is founded on the principle that regulated parties must have notice of their compliance obligations. Laws or regulations that fail to give fair notice violate due process and cannot give rise to liability. See, e.g., Gen. Elec. Co. v. EPA, 53 F.3d 1324 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

A notoriously unclear regulatory program addresses circumstances under which an existing facility triggers the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) “new source review” (NSR) program and its associated control technology and air quality review requirements. Over the past two decades, courts have concluded that the same words in the regulations have diametrically opposed meanings. Compare Nat’l Parks Conservation Ass’n, Inc. v. TVA, No. 3:01-CV-71, 2010 WL 1291335 (E.D. Tenn.Mar. 31, 2010) (boiler tube replacement is “routine” repair and replacement) with United States v. Ohio Edison Co., 276 F. Supp. 2d 829 (S.D. Ohio 2003) (boiler tube replacement is not “routine” repair and replacement). Indeed, after addressing the application of NSR to an industrial facility on two occasions, one three-judge panel in the Sixth Circuit produced five different opinions advancing three different interpretations of key provisions of the rules. See United States v. DTE Energy Co., 711 F.3d 643 (6th Cir. 2013); United States v. DTE Energy Co., 845 F.3d 735 (6th Cir. 2017). Disagreement among judges over the meaning of a regulation is objective evidence of a rule’s failure to provide fair notice of its compliance obligations.

This summer, EPA sparked public outrage with its proposed “significant new use” rule, or SNUR, addressing certain commercial uses of asbestos. Publications like Rolling Stone, Newsweek and The Daily Beast criticized EPA for loosening its regulations to pave the way for asbestos to be reintroduced to the market, allowing asbestos-containing construction materials to be used in homes and other buildings again for the first time in decades. National figures like Senator Brian Schatz and Chelsea Clinton drew attention to the proposal while condemning the Agency for increasing public exposure to this well-known carcinogen.

There’s just one issue: EPA’s proposed action does the opposite of what these critics claim. The SNUR would impose substantial new prohibitions on the listed uses of asbestos—which currently are not regulated by EPA at all—while giving EPA the necessary legal “hook” to restrict or even ban these uses outright in the unlikely event that a company actually tries to resume them.

How can news reports have gotten it so backward?