Environmental

  • July 29, 2024

    NIST Lays Out 200+ Ways To Tackle Generative AI Risks

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended hundreds of actions that can be taken to address issues of data privacy, intellectual property, environmental impact and more raised by generative artificial intelligence.

  • July 29, 2024

    Gas Refinery Co. On Hook For Worker's $1.6M Injury Award

    An Ohio appellate panel has affirmed a $1.6 million award to an energy services worker who suffered serious injuries after thousands of gallons of jet fuel spilled onto him, saying there is sufficient evidence to support the $5.3 million verdict, which was later reduced.

  • July 29, 2024

    County's Pipeline Sinkhole Suit Too Late, Contractor Says

    A construction company says a Washington state court should toss a breach of contract suit linked to a public sewer pipeline project that allegedly triggered sinkholes along a Seattle canal, saying the claims brought by a Washington county are barred by the state's six-year statute of repose for construction.

  • July 29, 2024

    USPS Backs Oshkosh's Sealing Bid In New Vehicle Plan Case

    The U.S. Postal Service on Friday backed Oshkosh Defense's request to seal their confidential supplier contract terms in litigation challenging the agency's decision to replace its aging delivery fleet with only 62% electric vehicles, arguing rivals could use the information to undercut the USPS when negotiating their own supplier contracts.

  • July 29, 2024

    Feds Strike $7M Deal With Co. In Emissions-Cheating Suit

    A North Carolina auto parts dealer will pay $7 million to end the federal government's lawsuit alleging the company sold parts that bypassed vehicles' emissions controls, according to a court filing on Monday.

  • July 29, 2024

    EPA, Army Reveal Joint PFAS Sampling Project

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army unveiled a joint national project to test private drinking water wells near Army installations for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, identifying 235 locations where they will carry out their more in-depth investigation. 

  • July 29, 2024

    Magistrate Eyes Cuts To Norfolk Southern Investors' Suit

    A New York federal magistrate judge has recommended tossing a portion of a securities suit filed against Norfolk Southern Corp. in the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, reasoning that the retirement funds serving as lead plaintiffs fell short of pleading standards.

  • July 29, 2024

    Utilities Seek 8th Circ. Freeze Of Power Plant Effluent Rule

    Utility companies, trade groups and nearly two dozen states are urging the Eighth Circuit to pause a challenged rule setting new wastewater limitations for coal-fired power plants, arguing that it will otherwise force utilities to commit to unreasonable investments or plant retirements.

  • July 29, 2024

    Clean Energy Tax Credit Sales Could Hit $25B, Report Says

    Total sales of clean energy tax credits could reach as high as $20 billion to $25 billion this year, signaling a flourishing marketplace for credit sales authorized by the 2022 climate law, according to a midyear report released Monday by a climate tech startup firm.

  • July 29, 2024

    6th Circ. Revives Challenge Of Clean Water Rule

    Just 11 days after oral arguments, the Sixth Circuit on Monday revived Kentucky and industry groups' challenges to a federal government rule defining the scope of the Clean Water Act, finding a district court judge had improperly dismissed the case.

  • July 26, 2024

    Farmworkers' Children, Corteva Settle Pesticide Injury Claims

    Children of migrant farmworkers, Corteva Inc. and its subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. asked an Illinois federal judge Friday to greenlight their confidential settlement resolving claims that the children were injured when they were crop-dusted with pesticides during a corn-pruning operation.

  • July 26, 2024

    Puerto Rico Fiscal Board Sues To Stop Solar Panel Bill

    The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico on Friday sued Gov. Pedro R. Pierluisi to nullify a law extending a program which reduces the cost of solar panels for Puerto Rican households, calling it legislative interference with the island's energy regulator.

  • July 26, 2024

    DC Circ. Vacates EPA's Biofuel Exemptions Denial

    The D.C. Circuit on Friday largely sided with dozens of small petroleum refiners challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's denial of their exemptions to federal renewable fuel blending requirements while keeping its reasoning for doing so under seal.

  • July 26, 2024

    EU Calls For Dispute Talks Over Taiwan's Wind Farm Policy

    The European Union challenged Taiwan's domestic sourcing requirements for offshore wind energy projects in the World Trade Organization, saying Friday that Taiwan was violating its duty not to discriminate against imported goods.

  • July 26, 2024

    EV Group Seeks To Defend Fuel Economy Rule In 6th Circ.

    A coalition of electric vehicle manufacturers and suppliers want in on a consolidated challenge in the Sixth Circuit to the U.S. Department of Transportation's new fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks, saying the EV industry's future viability banks on the stringent new standards.

  • July 26, 2024

    Feds Invest $240M In Pacific Tribal Fish Hatchery Efforts

    Hatcheries that produce Pacific salmon and steelhead will get $240 million in federal funding as the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Commerce Department look to restore fish in the Columbia River Basin and mitigate the impacts of dams on tribes, the U.S. government said.

  • July 26, 2024

    Power Groups Join Bid To Stay EPA Plant Rule At High Court

    Utility and coal industry groups have joined dozens of red states in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to block implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rule curbing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

  • July 26, 2024

    Washington Cases To Watch 2024: A Midyear Report

    Two Washington tribes are testing whether they can hold Big Oil companies accountable in state court for climate change-related catastrophes, the attorney general is defending a ban on large-capacity gun magazines, and a key test of the state's anti-patent troll law is set for trial.

  • July 26, 2024

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen U.K. band The 1975 face action by Future Sound Asia after its performance in Malaysia resulted in a festival's cancelation, Spectrum Insurance hit by The Motoring Organization following their dispute over information misuse, and a former police constable pursue defamation against a colleague for allegedly instigating a campaign of harassment against her. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • July 25, 2024

    Seattle, Monsanto Ink $160M Deal Over PCBs In Duwamish

    Bayer AG's Monsanto Co. has agreed to pay $160 million to resolve allegations that it contaminated Seattle's stormwater and drainage systems as well as the Lower Duwamish Waterway with polychlorinated biphenyls, the city attorney's office announced Thursday.

  • July 25, 2024

    Monsanto Says Appellate Win Should Stave Off Next PCB Trial

    Monsanto told a Washington state court its recent appellate victory left another set of chemical poisoning plaintiffs without key testimony tying their health conditions to polychlorinated biphenyls, hoping to avoid the next trial in a group of cases involving a single school site.

  • July 25, 2024

    NC High Court Signals End To College Building Access Row

    The Tar Heel State's Supreme Court this week unpaused a legal battle between North Carolina State University and a cancer-stricken professor after the two said they had resolved a dispute over testing for carcinogens in a campus building.

  • July 25, 2024

    Lawmakers Take Stab At Energy Permitting As Election Looms

    U.S. Senate energy committee leaders have proposed legislation that would significantly overhaul energy project infrastructure permitting, but it faces a sharply divided Congress made even more daunting by a presidential election this fall. With an initial markup scheduled for Wednesday, here are some key takeaways.

  • July 25, 2024

    Solvay Wants Arkema To Cover Some Of NJ PFAS Deal

    Solvay Specialty Polymers USA LLC said it plans to ask a New Jersey state judge to lift a 3-year-old stay so it can seek contributions from Arkema Inc. for the remediation of forever chemical pollution stemming from a West Deptford facility.

  • July 25, 2024

    California Disses Chamber's Climate Compliance Attack

    The state of California on Wednesday slammed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's attempt to block the state's corporate climate disclosure rules before discovery opened in the Chamber's suit, arguing it should be allowed a chance to disprove the group's "vague and unsubstantiated" claims.

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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