Regulations Listing: Environmental Sustainability

While California is on pace to reach its carbon reduction goals, given the uncertainty surrounding future regulations, businesses appear to be slowing participation. Therefore, Governor Brown signed into law SB 32, which extends California’s climate goals out to 2030, including an aggressive new goal of a 40 percent reduction from the state’s 1990 level.

At a United Nations (UN) conference in Rwanda, 197 nations came to an agreement to significantly reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are up to 1,000 times more powerful in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

On November 6, 2018, San Francisco voted to approve Proposition C, which is a business tax to pay for the expansion of homelessness programs. This new legislation is projected to generate approximately $250 to $300 million per year, which would be spent on permanent housing, mental health services, homelessness prevention and short-term shelters

In three states, voters passed ballot initiatives to adopt the Affordable Care Act's expansion of the Medicaid program. In Idaho, the expansion was approved with 60 percent of the vote, while in Nebraska and Utah it was approved with 54 percent and 53 percent, respectively. More than 300,000 residents across Nebraska, Idaho, and Utah are likely to gain access to health care coverage as a result of the approval measures. The number of states with Medicaid expansion now totals 37 states, including the District of Columbia.

Voters in both Arkansas and Missouri voted to approve substantial increases to their state minimum wages. Arkansas voted to increase the state’s current minimum wage of $8.50 an hour to $11 an hour by Jan. 1, 2021. The minimum wage will result in 25 percent of the state’s workers getting a raise.

The Environmental Protection Agency published its final rules for updating the hazardous waste generation program found in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

U.S. petroleum refiners and importers will face a new set of biofuel mandates after the Environmental Protection Agency updated its targets for the Renewable Fuel Standard program.

Environmental leaders in the Canadian government have announced plans to virtually eliminate the use of coal in electrical power generation by the year 2030.

The government of Canada announced that it would work to ban the manufacturing of products containing asbestos, as well as the import of such products, by the year 2018.

On February 2, 2017, Sweden announced that it had adopted a proposal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

In late March 2017, The White House issued an executive order on domestic energy policy that seeks to revise the set of climate and clean energy initiatives developed by the Obama administration.

REGULATORY RADAR - The European Parliament voted to reduce waste throughout Europe by 2030. The share of waste to be recycled would rise to 70 percent by 2030, from 44 percent today.