Environmental

  • June 17, 2024

    Feds, Tribes Say It's Too Soon To Reopen Monument Suit

    The federal government, tribes and conservation groups are fighting a bid by Utah and farming associations to lift a more than three-year stay in a challenge to the Bears Ears National Monument, arguing that the state is already involved in litigation that attempts to nullify the presidential proclamation that established it.

  • June 17, 2024

    Conn. Worker Gets $144K Counsel Fee After Bias Trial Win

    The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection must pay nearly $139,000 in attorney fees to W. Martyn Philpot Jr. after a Black employee won a federal jury verdict on racial hostility claims, including accusations that he found a noose hanging near his desk in a state office building.

  • June 17, 2024

    Ares, Searchlight-Led Group Plugs £500M Into RSK Group

    British sustainability company RSK Group Ltd., advised by Travers Smith LLP, on Monday announced that it is set to receive a £500 million ($634.5 million) preferred equity investment from a group led by private equity firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP-led Searchlight Capital Partners LP and Dechert LLP-led Ares Management Corp., which will be used to fund growth initiatives.

  • June 17, 2024

    Ga. County Says Battery Co.'s Dumping Caused Blaze

    A Georgia electric vehicle battery manufacturer that has come under regulatory scrutiny for a series of workplace safety violations has been hit with a lawsuit from its own county, which accused the company of dumping hundreds of batteries that led to a massive fire at a local recycling plant.

  • June 14, 2024

    Utah Gov. And Land Trust Beat Tribe's Bidding Suit, For Now

    A federal judge dismissed claims against Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, several state officials and its trust lands administration in a tribe's challenge accusing them of spinning a racist bidding scheme to prevent it from winning a land auction to purchase land just outside its reservation.

  • June 14, 2024

    Uri Pricing Upheld After Lower Court 'Strayed From Its Lane'

    The Texas Supreme Court on Friday said that the Public Utility Commission of Texas acted within its authority when it set a single price for electricity at the market cap during 2021 winter storm Uri, overturning a blockbuster decision by a lower court that upheld its two pricing orders.

  • June 14, 2024

    Makah Tribe Can Resume Hunting Gray Whales

    The Makah Tribe can go back to its long-standing cultural practice of hunting gray whales off the coast of Washington now that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has authorized it to resume ceremonial and subsistence hunting in line with its treaty rights.

  • June 14, 2024

    Feds, Tribes Say Mill Owners Liable For 150 Years Of Pollution

    The federal government, the state of Washington and a slew of tribes are suing the owners of a shuttered sawmill and a property group that now oversee the sawmill area's development, alleging that for more than a century, hazardous substances from the operation released into Port Gamble Bay and have harmed its natural resources.

  • June 14, 2024

    Split DC Circ. Rejects NY's Electricity Rate Challenge

    A split D.C. Circuit panel rejected Friday a New York utility regulator's attempt to unravel the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of the state grid operator's wholesale electricity rates, leaving in place an estimated 17-year lifespan for new fossil-fueled power plants.

  • June 14, 2024

    Colo. Says Pollution Law Leaves Details Up In The Air

    Colorado's Air Quality Control Commission said state lawmakers gave it a long leash to implement a 2021 law requiring more stringent air pollution monitoring in disproportionately impacted communities, urging a state judge to reject environmental groups' challenge to a permitting rule. 

  • June 14, 2024

    'Alkaline Water' Co. Owes Another $3.1B For Liver Failures

    A Las Vegas jury awarded $3 billion in punitive damages and $89.75 million in compensatory damages Friday to a group of children and adults who experienced severe liver problems after drinking toxin-adulterated "alkaline water," adding to the product maker's legal woes.

  • June 14, 2024

    DC Circ. Backs FERC Climate Reviews In Pipeline Project Row

    The D.C. Circuit on Friday appeared to endorse the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's current method of evaluating the climate change impacts of gas infrastructure projects in approval in rejecting an environmental group's challenge of the agency's pipeline upgrade project serving the New York City area.

  • June 14, 2024

    Enviros Fight FERC OK Of Pipeline Feeding Mexico LNG Plant

    The Sierra Club and Public Citizen called on the D.C. Circuit to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of a methane gas pipeline to run between West Texas and Mexico, asserting the agency failed to conduct a thorough analysis of the pipeline's 157 U.S.-based miles.

  • June 14, 2024

    House Passes $884B Defense Bill For 2025

    The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed an $883.7 billion defense policy and budget bill in a mostly party-line vote after adopting several contentious amendments related to climate change, abortion and diversity programs.

  • June 14, 2024

    Malaysian Oil Biz Hibiscus Buys TotalEnergies Unit For $259M

    Kuala Lumpur-based oil and gas producer Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad said it has agreed to buy a Brunei subsidiary of France's TotalEnergie for $259 million, advised by Malaysian law firm Murad Yee Partnership.

  • June 13, 2024

    Co. Says 'Lawyerly Technicalities' Won't Undo $45B DOE Deal

    A joint venture awarded a $45 billion nuclear waste management contract by the U.S. Department of Energy accused a rival joint venture of relying on "lawyerly technicalities" to upend an award it said was ultimately determined by who could perform the work best. 

  • June 13, 2024

    FERC Faces Chorus Of Calls To Rethink Grid Policy Overhaul

    Dozens of requests that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reconsider parts or all of its sweeping revision of its regional transmission planning policies have been filed, some of which could telegraph future court challenges if the agency ultimately sticks to its guns. Here's a roundup of the notable issues raised in the rehearing requests for FERC Order No. 1920.

  • June 13, 2024

    Chinese Officials Promise Response On EV Tariffs

    A Chinese Foreign Ministry official told reporters on Thursday that Beijing "will take all measures necessary" to combat planned European Union tariffs on its electric-vehicle exports, after Brussels announced preliminary countervailing duty rates of up to 38.1%.

  • June 13, 2024

    Monsanto Can't Plead Ignorance On PCB Pollution, Cities Say

    Chicago suburbs looking to hold Monsanto and related businesses accountable for their financial share of reducing pollutants in water that flows into Lake Michigan urged an Illinois state court to keep their case alive, arguing the companies should have known about the dangers of the chemicals in products.

  • June 13, 2024

    Chamber Asks DC Circ. To Reject EPA's PFAS Designation

    Three business groups, spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have gone to the D.C. Circuit to challenge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision to declare two "forever chemicals" to be hazardous materials under federal law.

  • June 13, 2024

    Norfolk Southern Slams Bid To Seal Reports In Derailment Suit

    Norfolk Southern ripped into a chemical company's bid to seal two expert reports from a former first responder that the railroad sought to file in the multidistrict litigation over last year's derailment and chemical spill in Ohio, saying the chemical firm's arguments are weak and misstate the issues.

  • June 13, 2024

    Tribes Fight BC's Consultation Policy On Aboriginal Rights

    Indigenous nations along British Columbia's U.S. border want a say in projects they claim will threaten the environment and their quality of life after the Canadian province announced plans earlier this year to develop a policy to clarify how tribes located outside the country are consulted on such endeavors.

  • June 13, 2024

    Tesla Shareholders Approve Musk's Compensation Package

    Tesla's shareholders voted to approve a multibillion-dollar compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk, the company's top lawyer announced Thursday during a meeting in which investors also approved moving the company's incorporation from Delaware to Texas.

  • June 13, 2024

    Green Groups Challenge EPA Approval Of La. Well Authority

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to give Louisiana authority over some underground injection wells, which can be used for carbon capture and sequestration, violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, green groups said in a new lawsuit.

  • June 13, 2024

    Ford Asks To Defend EPA's Heavy-Duty Truck Emissions Rule

    Ford Motor Co. has urged the D.C. Circuit to let it intervene in defense of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's final rule establishing greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles such as delivery trucks, dump trucks, public utility trucks and buses.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.

  • A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System

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    As courts handle increasingly complex damages analyses involving vast amounts of data, an economic clerkship program — integrating early-career economists into the judicial system — could improve legal outcomes and provide essential training to clerks, say Mona Birjandi at Data for Decisions and Matt Farber at Secretariat.

  • What A Louisiana Ruling Means For Pipeline Crossings

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    After a Louisiana appeals court's recent ruling on a conflict between two pipeline projects, operators and developers should review pipeline crossings to ensure that they occur at safe distances — and keep in mind the value of crossing agreements for protecting both sides in case of a dispute, say attorneys at McGuireWoods.

  • ECHR Ruling May Pave Path For A UK Climate Damage Tort

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    In light of case law on the interaction between human rights law and common law, the European Court of Human Rights' recent ruling in KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, finding the country at fault for failures to tackle global warming, could tip the scales toward extending English tort law to cover climate change-related losses, say lawyers at Cleary.

  • Opinion

    Climate Change Shouldn't Be Litigated Under State Laws

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    The U.S. Supreme Court should reverse the Hawaii Supreme Court's October decision in Honolulu v. Sunoco that Hawaii could apply state law to emissions generated outside the state, because it would lead to a barrage of cases seeking to resolve a worldwide problem according to 50 different variations of state law, says Andrew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.

  • Regulating Resurrected Species Under The ESA

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    As the prospect of extinct species being resurrected from DNA and reintroduced into the wild grows closer, an analysis of the Endangered Species Act suggests that it could provide a thoughtful, flexible governance framework for such scenarios, say Caroline Meadows and Shelby Bobosky at the SMU Dedman School of Law.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data

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    Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking

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    With the 2024 election rapidly approaching, the Biden administration must race to finalize proposed agency actions within the next few weeks, or be exposed to the chance that the following Congress will overturn the rules under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Covington.

  • IP Considerations For Companies In Carbon Capture Sector

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    As companies collaborate to commercialize carbon capture technologies amid massive government investment under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a coherent intellectual property strategy is more important than ever, including proactively addressing and resolving questions about ownership of the technology, say Ashley Kennedy and James De Vellis at Foley & Lardner.

  • Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes

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    Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.

  • 5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow

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    The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.

  • What's Extraordinary About Challenges To SEC Climate Rule

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    A set of ideologically diverse legal challenges to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rule have been consolidated in the Eighth Circuit via a seldom-used lottery system, and the unpredictability of this process may drive agencies toward a more cautious future approach to rulemaking, say attorneys at Thompson Coburn.

  • Series

    Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

  • Opinion

    SEC Doesn't Have Legal Authority For Climate Disclosure Rule

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    Instead of making the required legal argument to establish its authority, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosure rule hides behind more than 1,000 references to materiality to give the appearance that its rule is legally defensible, says Bernard Sharfman at RealClearFoundation.

  • What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.

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