Litigation

The United Steelworkers (USW) is joining an environmental coalition in challenging EPA’s rollback of the Obama-era chemical facility safety rule, contending the agency “capitulated to industry demands” by eliminating key provisions in the rule that would prevent foreseeable catastrophic accidents.

As it awaits a ruling on the legality of OSHA’s rule rolling back Obama-era recordkeeping and reporting mandates, consumer group Public Citizen is defending its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking data OSHA collected in 2017 under the retained portion of the rule.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has rejected the Center for Biological Diversity’s (CBD) long-running challenge aiming to limit or overturn the Congressional Review Act (CWA), finding Congress has broad discretion to scrap OSHA and other agencies’ rules with a streamlined voting process that limits judicial review.

A federal district judge has rejected a long-pending suit over President Donald Trump’s 2017 executive order (EO) commanding agencies to balance out each new regulation they issue by identifying two existing rules for repeal, holding that the plaintiffs never identified a specific rule that was delayed or dropped because of the EO.

A coalition of environmentalists has filed suit against EPA’s rollback of an Obama-era regulation tightening facility safety mandates on the same day the measure was promulgated, arguing the Trump administration has removed nearly all disaster-prevention measures and weakened many of the other protections that were in the 2017 rule.

A federal judge has rejected EPA’s effort to block environmentalists’ suit challenging the agency’s refusal to craft asbestos reporting rules under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a potentially precedent-setting ruling that could further bolster plaintiffs’ efforts seeking to challenge EPA petition denials.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has denied environmentalists and labor groups’ challenges to the scope of EPA’s framework rule for evaluating existing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), but the court also rejected EPA’s push to preclude “legacy uses” and associated disposal when assessing risks.

The safety advocacy group Food & Water Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) aiming to force release of data underpinning the agency’s final rule easing swine slaughter inspection mandates, a policy that the group has warned poses major risks to workers.

EPA is poised to release its draft evaluation of environmental and health risks from exposure to methylene chloride, according to a pending Federal Register notice, raising questions about what risk determinations the agency proposes, particularly regarding occupational exposures not addressed in its existing rule.

Patients and transplant centers are urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to review a three-judge panel decision that sidestepped a fight over deference courts give to OSHA and other agencies when it upheld a federal liver transplant policy, arguing the panel erred in finding the government’s rule interpretations to be valid.