Shell J. Bleiweiss

Congress passed HR2869, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act on December 21, 2001. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law. The bill protects small businesses and residential generators from most CERCLA liability, creates new grant programs for brownfield redevelopment, clarifies and expands the innocent purchaser exemption, and creates new protections for prospective purchasers. To see how the amendments apply to you, contact Shell.

This mainly cigarette smoke proposed rule was controversial from the beginning.

On Friday, April 14, 2000, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in Appalachian Power Company et al. v. EPA, ruled that EPA circumvented its obligation to make major policy changes through formal rulemaking processes by seeking to expand monitoring activities under the Clean Air Act through the use of its 1998 Periodic Monitoring Guidance for Title V Operating Permits.

EPA has published its Draft Final Healthy Buildings, Healthy People: A Vision for the 21st Century Report. Comments are due by May 31, 2000. Access the report at Note to Readers.

On April 19, 1999, OSHA announced a new site-specific enforcement plan that targets 2,200 workplaces for immediate, unannounced wall-to-wall inspection. The new plan, announced following the federal appelate court’s striking down of OSHA’s so-called Cooperative Compliance Program (“CCP”), is based on 1997 injury and illness data. Under the new plan, work sites with a Lost Workday Injury and Illness Rate (“LWDI”) of 16.0 or more will be inspected by the end of 1999. Employers with an LWDI of 16.0 or more should prepare for an inspection immediately.

EPA has begun to enforce its Real Estate Notification and Disclosure Rule which requires the disclosure of information concerning lead-based paint and its hazards in residential housing, at the time of sale or lease. See 40 CFR Pt. 745, subpart F. EPA inspectors are performing surprise inspections at, among other places, real estate brokerage and rental offices.

A recent Supreme Court decision gives new life to PRP challenges to the retroactive application of Superfund. In Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 118 S. Ct. 2121 (June 25, 1998), the Supreme Court held a retroactive requirement to fund health care costs an unconstitutional taking, applying takings law for the first time to the imposition of liability to pay claims.