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The federal district court presiding over National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors v. Feldon has issued a new scheduling order that provides insight into the next phase of the groundbreaking challenge against Oregon’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law. Following a five-day bench trial in July and the parties' post-trial briefings, filed on July 31, 2026, Judge Michael H. Simon concluded that oral argument is unnecessary. Instead, the court has requested supplemental briefing on...

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Susanna W. Blair, Senior Director of Regulatory and Technical Affairs for the Consumer Brands Association (CBA), which represents the interests of the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) community. Having left the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after a distinguished career as a senior scientist and policy expert, Dr. Blair is putting her science policy chops to good use at CBA. We discuss CBA’s mission, its focus on food and...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on July 14, 2026, entitled Biotechnology: Applications, Challenges, and Policy Options for Engineered Microbes for Waste Cleanup that assesses current and emerging genetically engineered (GE) microbe technologies for waste cleanup. The report examines: the status, benefits, and risks of GE microbes for waste cleanup; the challenges of developing or using GE microbes for waste cleanup; and options policymakers could consider to...

On July 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office (AFFO) announced its intent to fund the advancement of novel, high-impact chemical technologies. According to AFFO, the proposed funding opportunity, Accelerating Scale-up and Pre-piloting of Emerging Chemical Technologies (ASPECT), will advance technologies for producing chemicals from alternative and waste feedstocks. AFFO notes that more than 96 percent of manufactured goods rely on products from...

On August 4, 2026, the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care will hold a hearing on “Building a Resilient Health Care Future with Biotechnology.” The Subcommittee will hear from the following witnesses: Alan D. Palkowitz, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Indiana Biosciences Research Institute (IBRI); Michelle Rozo, Ph.D., Vice Chair, National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB); Vera P. Luther, M.D., MS, Section Chief of Infectious Disease and...

In July, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the Trump Administration’s 2026 Unified Agenda. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Unified Agenda includes the following rulemakings regarding biobased products and biotechnology: Technical Guidelines for the Production of Regenerative Agricultural Biofuel Feedstocks: The Biden USDA issued an interim final rule (IFR) to establish new regulations that will set requirements for the quantification, reporting, and verification...

As we reported in our May 4, 2026, memorandum , on May 5, 2026, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued a final rule on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in consumer products. The most controversial and burdensome part of the rule has been a labeling requirement for products manufactured after January 1, 2027. This week, an NMED representative stated that “[i]t is NMED’s position that the scope is limited to consumer products as that term is defined in the PFAS...

On July 17, 2026, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a final significant set of revisions to regulations implementing the Endangered Species Act (ESA), continuing the Trump Administration's broader effort to reshape federal environmental regulation through a combination of deregulation, statutory reinterpretation, and reliance on the Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The latest rulemaking follows several ESA actions proposed in late 2025 that sought...

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a report entitled Key ingested per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and their health effects: landscape review that presents an overview of a comprehensive landscape review of PFAS. The authors assembled a health effects database comprising approximately 57,000 observations covering 66 individual PFAS, drawn from 48 distinct data sources. In parallel, the authors assembled an occurrence database containing nearly 300,000 observations...

Established in 1992, the European Union (EU) Ecolabel is a world-renowned voluntary label that promotes environmental excellence through standardized processes and science-based criteria. As the European Commission transitions to a circular economy -- moving away from the traditional linear model of ‘take, make, use, dispose’ toward one in which products and materials remain in circulation and waste is minimized -- the EU Ecolabel considers the environmental impacts across a product’s...