Winston’s Environmental Law Update

On June 29, 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will be terminating its controversial temporary enforcement policy on August 31, 2020.

In November 2019, the Equator Principles Association published the fourth iteration of the Equator Principles (EP4).

Last Thursday, President Trump issued an Executive Order (Order) entitled Accelerating the Nation’s Economic Recovery from the COVID-19 Emergency by Expediting Infrastructure Investments and Other Activities, which expands on a series of initiatives by the Trump Administration to address the economic impacts of COVID-19. The Order is intended to expedite infrastructure projects by requiring agencies to take “all reasonable measures to speed infrastructure investments.” Such “reasonable measures” include exercising emergency statutory provisions in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), and other laws to bypass environmental procedural requirements. In addition to infrastructure, transportation, and civil works projects, the Order applies to energy, environmental, and natural resources projects on federal lands.

On May 13, 2020, a coalition of nine attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s policy for exercising civil enforcement discretion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 22, 2020, EPA published an interim rule granting temporary reprieve to regulated sources from the quality-assurance monitoring and reporting requirements under 40 CFR Part 75 due to COVID-19-related interruptions.

To date, the novel coronavirus has not been detected in drinking water. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that the conventional water treatment methods employed by municipal drinking water systems, including filtration and disinfection, should remove or inactivate the virus that causes COVID-19. 

While U.S. EPA recently announced in a March 26, 2020 memo that it will temporarily suspend enforcement of certain routine monitoring and reporting violations due to COVID-19, EPA’s memo does not amount to a “free pass” for businesses to voluntarily discontinue compliance monitoring and reporting. 

On April 10, 2020, the Assistant Administrators of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA or Agency) Office of Land and Emergency Management and Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance issued a memorandum entitled “Interim Guidance on Site Field Work Decisions Due to Impacts of COVID-19” to all EPA Regional Administrators.