Environmental

  • March 11, 2025

    Fannie Mae Says Complex Filed Ch. 11 To Duck $73M Loan

    Fannie Mae told a federal court Monday that a Houston apartment complex's Chapter 11 filing was a "tactic" to avoid its obligation to repay a $73 million loan.

  • March 11, 2025

    Holland & Hart Taps Perkins Coie Attys For New Phoenix Office

    Holland & Hart LLP announced Tuesday that it has opened its 14th office, this one in Phoenix, with two environmental partners from Perkins Coie LLP.

  • March 10, 2025

    EPA Says It Wants To Redo Biden-Era Chemical Risk Rule

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday told the D.C. Circuit it wants to reconsider a Biden-era rule that strengthened regulations to assess chemicals' health and environmental risks.

  • March 10, 2025

    Alsup Refuses To Vacate Hearing Into OPM Mass Firings

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Monday denied the Trump administration's request to vacate an upcoming evidentiary hearing into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's mass firings of probationary federal employees, and required OPM director Charles Ezell to appear in person or else be deposed.

  • March 10, 2025

    EPA Climate Grantee Sues Citibank, Agency Over Frozen Cash

    A climate-change-focused nonprofit is accusing Citibank NA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in D.C. federal court of breaching a contract to deliver billions of dollars in grant funding that's been frozen by the Trump administration.

  • March 10, 2025

    Tariff Shifts Creating Compliance Chaos For Energy Cos.

    The unpredictability of President Donald Trump's tariff maneuvers is challenging energy companies' ability to comply with fluctuating mandates and making tariff violations more likely.

  • March 10, 2025

    DOT Pulls Biden Enviro Justice Highway Funding Policy

    The U.S. Department of Transportation on Monday rescinded Biden-era memorandums that advised state and local agencies receiving funds from 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to prioritize highway, road, bridge and other projects that promoted social justice or climate resiliency goals.

  • March 10, 2025

    DOJ Defends Musk's Influence Against States' Challenge

    The U.S. Department of Justice is defending Elon Musk's influence in the federal government against a constitutional challenge brought by 14 states, telling D.C. federal court that the "special government employee" does not occupy an official office that would be subject to the Constitution's appointments clause.

  • March 10, 2025

    Whitecap Merging With Veren In $10.4B Oil & Gas Deal

    Whitecap Resources Inc. said Monday it will merge with fellow Canadian oil and gas company Veren Inc. in an all-stock deal valued at CA$15 billion (US$10.4 billion) including debt. 

  • March 10, 2025

    NC Bill Allocates $80M To Move Helene-Damaged Courthouse

    A state legislative proposal that would allocate $80 million in the form of a one-time grant for the relocation of a historic North Carolina county courthouse rendered unusable by Hurricane Helene cleared its first hurdle Monday.

  • March 10, 2025

    Fox Rothschild Lands Enviro Ace From Connell Foley In NJ

    Fox Rothschild LLP has added an environmental partner with over 25 years of experience practicing and a background as Connell Foley LLP's former environmental chair in its Morristown office, the firm announced Monday.

  • March 10, 2025

    Justices Reject Red-State Bid To End State Climate Torts

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a request from red states to stop climate change torts against fossil fuel companies brought by blue-state governments.

  • March 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Open To Reviving Monsanto Expiration Label Fight

    A Ninth Circuit panel appeared open Friday to reviving a proposed class action over expiration dates on Monsanto's Roundup pesticides, but two judges were skeptical of claims against a distributor, which the distributor's counsel argued could open the floodgates of litigation.

  • March 07, 2025

    Feds Say California Tribes' Casino Challenge Comes Too Late

    The U.S. Department of the Interior and other agencies have asked a D.C. federal judge to deny two tribes' challenge to another tribe's plan to build a casino-hotel complex on 221 acres of trust land, saying their request for a stay is improper and untimely.

  • March 07, 2025

    Ga. PFAS Liability, DEI Bills Among Those To Not 'Crossover'

    Georgia lawmakers failed to push forward legislation that would have reduced corporate liability for PFAS contamination, would have given voters a say on whether to legalize sports betting and curbed diversity initiatives in schools, after having previously passed bills to advance the governor's tort reform agenda.

  • March 07, 2025

    4th Circ. Overturns Remand Of Md., SC PFAS Suits Against 3M

    U.S. district court judges erred when they sent lawsuits Maryland and South Carolina filed against 3M over environmental contamination from consumer products containing forever chemicals back to state courts, a split Fourth Circuit panel ruled Friday.

  • March 07, 2025

    Hints Of A New High Court Majority Emerge In Trump Cases

    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent rejection of President Donald Trump's bid to keep frozen nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funding gave court watchers a glimpse of a coalition majority that could end up thwarting some of the president's more aggressive and novel attempts to expand executive power.

  • March 07, 2025

    GAO Says Congress Can't Undo Calif. Emissions Waivers

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office is weighing in against the Trump administration's effort to team up with Congress to take away California's ability to set its own greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles.

  • March 07, 2025

    Goodyear Must Include Microplastic Proposal In Proxy

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has rejected Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s bid to exclude from its annual proxy statement a shareholder proposal calling for goals and timelines related to reducing tire wear shedding and subsequent microplastic pollution.

  • March 07, 2025

    CPKC Rail Merger Enviro Review Needs Redo, DC Circ. Told

    A group of Illinois towns told the D.C. Circuit on Friday that federal regulators relied on flawed train traffic data to approve Canadian Pacific's $31 billion merger with Kansas City Southern, failing to account for significant public safety and environmental harms to Windy City communities.

  • March 07, 2025

    Gas Station Asks 11th Circ. To Revive Pollution Coverage Suit

    A Florida gas station owner asked the Eleventh Circuit on Friday to revive its lawsuit trying to get Nautilus Insurance Co. to cover the costs to clean up contamination caused by a leaking underground fuel tank, telling the appeals court the company did not learn of the leak until after the policy went into effect.

  • March 07, 2025

    Cosmetics Co. Sues Insurer Over Calif. Water Pollution Claims

    A cosmetics company facing water pollution claims told a California federal court its insurer denied coverage in bad faith, saying though the insurer agreed to defend a lawsuit from the California attorney general, the insurer still wrongly refused to reimburse costs from two prior, related suits that were ultimately rescinded.

  • March 07, 2025

    Tariffs, Diversity And DOGE Dominate Trump 2.0 'Risk Factors'

    Public companies are busily reworking risk disclosures since the arrival of President Donald Trump's second administration, seeking to walk a fine line of being upfront with investors about potential threats to business despite vast legal and policy uncertainties.

  • March 07, 2025

    EPA To Drop Enforcement Suit Against La. Neoprene Maker

    The Trump administration is dropping a lawsuit alleging that a neoprene manufacturer's air emissions pose a health threat to the surrounding community, saying the action is part of its effort to "end radical DEI programs" and "eliminate ideological overreach."

  • March 07, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Wachtell, Skadden

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Walgreens Boots Alliance goes private via a deal with Sycamore Partners, Honeywell buys Sundyne from Warburg Pincus, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals acquires Chimerix.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Attorneys Must Act Now To Protect Judicial Independence

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    Given the Trump administration's recent moves threatening the independence of the judiciary, including efforts to impeach judges who ruled against executive actions, lawyers must protect the rule of law and resist attempts to dilute the judicial branch’s authority, says attorney Bhavleen Sabharwal.

  • The Math Of Cross-Examination: Less Is More, More Is Less

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    When conducting cross-examination at trial, attorneys should remember that “less is more, and more is less” — limiting both the scope of questioning and the length of each query in order to control the witness’s testimony and keep the factfinders’ attention, says Thomas Innes at the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

  • Rethinking 'No Comment' For Clients Facing Public Crises

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    “No comment” is no longer a cost-free or even a viable public communications strategy for companies in crisis, and counsel must tailor their guidance based on a variety of competing factors to help clients emerge successfully, says Robert Bowers at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Fund Names Rule FAQs Leave Some Interpretative Uncertainty

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    Although recently released FAQs clarify many specific points of the 2023 expansion to the Investment Company Act's fund names rule, important questions remain about how U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff will interpret other key terms when the end-of-year compliance date arrives, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • How Design Thinking Can Help Lawyers Find Purpose In Work

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    Lawyers everywhere are feeling overwhelmed amid mass government layoffs, increasing political instability and a justice system stretched to its limits — but a design-thinking framework can help attorneys navigate this uncertainty and find meaning in their work, say law professors at the University of Michigan.

  • Tools For Witness Control That Go Beyond Leading Questions

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    Though leading questions can be efficient and effective for constraining a witness’s testimony, this strategy isn’t appropriate for every trial and pretrial scenario, so techniques like headlining and looping can be deployed during direct examination, depositions and even witness interviews, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

  • Opinion

    US Steel-Nippon Merger Should Not Have Been Blocked

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    The Biden administration's block of the U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel merger on national security grounds was unconstitutional overreach and needs to be overturned, with the harms remedied in federal court, says attorney Chuck Meyer. 

  • 10 Issues To Watch In Aerospace And Defense Contracting

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    This year, in addition to evergreen developments driven by national security priorities, disruptive new technologies and competition with rival powers, federal contractors will see significant disruptions driven by the new administration’s efforts to reduce government spending, regulation and the size of the federal workforce, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • Navigating The Trump Enviro Rollback And Its Consequences

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    The Trump administration's rapid push for environmental deregulation will lead to both opportunities and challenges, requiring companies to adopt strategic approaches to a complex, unpredictable legal environment in which federal rollbacks are countered by increased enforcement by states, and risks of citizen litigation may be heightened, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

  • Series

    Competitive Weightlifting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The parallels between the core principles required for competitive weightlifting and practicing law have helped me to excel in both endeavors, with each holding important lessons about discipline, dedication, drive and failure, says Damien Bielli at VF Law.

  • 8 Ways Cos. Can Prep For Termination Of Their Enviro Grants

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    The federal government appears to be reviewing energy- and infrastructure-related grants and potentially terminating grants inconsistent with the Trump administration's stated policy goals, and attorneys at DLA Piper provide eight steps that recipients of grants should consider taking in the interim.

  • Opinion

    Undoing An American Ideal Of Fairness

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    President Donald Trump’s orders attacking birthright citizenship, civil rights education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs threaten hard-won constitutional civil rights protections and decades of efforts to undo bias in the law — undermining what Chief Justice Earl Warren called "our American ideal of fairness," says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • How Trump EPA Could Fix Carbon Combustion Residuals Rule

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    The Trump administration is likely targeting the recently adopted carbon combustion residual rule, especially since it imposes very stringent, detailed and expedited requirements on coal power plants — but even if the rule is not vacated entirely, there are measures that could greatly reduce its regulatory burden, says Stephen Jones at Post & Schell.

  • Nippon Order Tests Gov't Control Over Foreign Investments

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    The U.S. government is primarily interested in restraining foreign transactions involving countries of concern, but former President Joe Biden’s January order blocking the merger of Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel shows that all foreign direct investments are under the federal government’s microscope, say attorneys at Blank Rome.

  • Opinion

    Inconsistent Injury-In-Fact Rules Hinder Federal Practice

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    A recent Third Circuit decision, contradicting a previous ruling about whether consumers of contaminated products have suffered an injury in fact, illustrates the deep confusion this U.S. Supreme Court standard creates among federal judges and practitioners, who deserve a simpler method of determining which cases have federal standing, says Eric Dwoskin at Dwoskin Wasdin.

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