COVID-19: Implications for the Environmental Regulatory and Enforcement Landscape

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic arose at a critical time for the Trump administration's environmental regulatory and deregulatory agenda, creating unprecedented challenges for regulators and regulated entities alike. How will efforts to complete and defend rulemaking initiatives be affected by impediments to public notice and comment, impacts to the federal workforce, delays in the courts, and the forthcoming "lookback" period under the Congressional Review Act?

Meanwhile, in an effort to provide desperately needed guidance to facilities struggling to maintain normal environmental regulatory compliance and cleanup activities, EPA and many states have issued important policy pronouncements on enforcement discretion (March 26, 2020) and hazardous waste and other site-specific cleanup decisions (April 10, 2020). Yet, these guidance documents have raised as many questions as they answer.

During this webinar, our panel of environmental law experts anticipate how the crisis is likely to affect the administration's ability to finalize key regulatory initiatives by the end of this term, and discuss EPA guidance on responding to claims with which the crisis has interfered, regulatory compliance and pollution cleanup activities.