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Environmental Justice (“EJ”) continues to be a strong focus of both the federal and state governments with two major developments occurring in the past two weeks.

At long last, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) is poised to grant Louisiana authority to issue Class VI permits under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act’s (“SDWA”) Underground Injection Control (“UIC”) program for long-term carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”).

Welcome to Vinson & Elkins’ Securities and ESG Updates.

Environmental Justice (“EJ”) continued to prove a major focus of the Biden administration in 2022. With wide-ranging initiatives across several federal agencies, the administration worked to strengthen enforcement, release new tools and data, issue new guidance policies and memoranda, and create national offices, among other key actions.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced it will continue to prioritize enforcement of, and compliance with, the Safe Drinking Water Act and federal drinking water regulations through Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2027, according to a January 12, 2023 notice.

In a move that could have far-ranging implications for projects that require federal permits and rulemaking across the entire federal government, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) published interim guidance on January 9, 2023, to assist federal agencies in assessing the greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions and climate change effects of their proposed actions under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”).

New guidance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) sheds light on how the agency intends to incorporate environmental justice (“EJ”)¹ into air permitting programs across the country.

In an ambitious step toward New York state’s climate goals, the New York State Climate Action Council approved a Scoping Plan on December 19, 2022, which sets forth a series of recommended policies and actions.

As a result of ongoing discussions, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union announced on December 13, 2022, that a provisional agreement had been reached to implement a European Union (“EU”) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (“CBAM”) beginning on October 1, 2023.

Long awaited, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) last week released the proposed Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) “set” rule.

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (“FAR Council”) published a proposed rule in the Federal Register on November 14, 2022, that would create several significant compliance obligations for federal contractors.

Last November, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a regulatory preamble describing its plans for proposed standards to reduce methane emissions and other air pollutants from affected sources within the oil and gas sector.