Biden Orders Immediate Confrontation of Climate Crisis
On Jan. 20, President Joe Biden signed an executive order entitled, “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis.” It establishes the Biden administration’s commitment to immediately work to confront both the causes and impacts of climate change by implementing policy guided by science. The order rolls back many actions taken by the Trump administration to loosen environmental standards and protections and calls on all federal agency heads to review and “consider suspending, revising, or rescinding the agency actions” that may be inconsistent with Biden’s articulated policy. It also effectively recommits the U.S. to the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, a multilateral treaty designed to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change, which President Trump withdrew the U.S. from in 2017.
Agriculture
your username
January 7, 2021
On Jan. 4, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published two notices in the Federal Register regarding proposed consent decrees to resolve separate cases brought by United Refining Co. and co-petitioners the State of Wyoming and PacifiCorp. The agency is now soliciting public comment regarding the proposed consent decree and settlement agreement.
The EPA explained that in United Refining Co.’s lawsuit, the plaintiff filed a petition with the agency seeking a small refinery exemption from its 2019 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) obligations pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA). United Refining then filed suit on Jul. 20, 2020, compelling agency action because the EPA had not yet issued a decision on its petition. The proposed consent decree would resolve the dispute by creating a mid-February deadline by which the EPA must act on the plaintiff’s request.