Public Policy

  • December 11, 2024

    Feds, Illinois Sue East St. Louis For Sewage Pollution

    The federal government and state of Illinois sued the city of East St. Louis on Wednesday alleging its failure to operate the city's sewer system in compliance with the law has led to the pollution of local waterways with untreated sewage for years.

  • December 11, 2024

    Quick Party Shift Coming To NLRB As McFerran Vote Fails

    President-elect Donald Trump appears poised to have an immediate opening to seat a Republican majority at the National Labor Relations Board after the U.S. Senate narrowly voted down a push to give outgoing Democratic Chairman Lauren McFerran another term Wednesday.

  • December 11, 2024

    DA Says Allegheny County Pension System Risks Insolvency

    The Allegheny County employee retirement coffers could run out of money within 15 years, the Pennsylvania jurisdiction's top prosecutor warned in a lawsuit seeking to make the county and the retirement board fix the allegedly floundering system.

  • December 11, 2024

    White House Wants US Chips In Gov't Supply Chain

    The Biden administration is asking for suggestions on how best to encourage government contractors to "scale up their use" of American-made microchips in a new request for information Tuesday, looking to drive demand as the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act incentivizes new domestic supply.

  • December 11, 2024

    FCC Allows Full 6 GHz Band For Unlicensed Wireless Devices

    The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday opened two more slices of the 6 gigahertz airwaves to power unlicensed wireless uses ranging from augmented reality to body-worn technologies.

  • December 11, 2024

    Alabama Judge To Retire Jan. 2, Opening New Seat For Trump

    An Alabama federal judge informed President Joe Biden on Tuesday that he would be retiring Jan. 2, making him the second judge appointed by a Republican president to announce his retirement after Donald Trump won the presidential election this year.

  • December 11, 2024

    After Veto Threat, Courts Warn Need For More Judges Urgent

    Following President Joe Biden's veto threat of a bill to add more federal judgeships, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts warned Wednesday that there is an urgent need for more judges despite the White House's claim that there's no immediate need to create more seats.

  • December 11, 2024

    DC Circ. Lets Pipeline Safety Rule Remain Amid Agency Fix

    The D.C. Circuit has agreed to leave in place one of four new safety standards for gas transmission pipelines while the U.S. Department of Transportation works to amend them, after an industry group said not doing so could cause unnecessary repair costs.

  • December 11, 2024

    FBI Director Wray To Resign Before Trump's Inauguration

    FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday he will resign in January at the end of President Joe Biden's term, averting what was expected to be his dismissal when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

  • December 11, 2024

    Developer, Feds Ask Justices To Pass On Offshore Wind Case

    The federal government and Vineyard Wind 1 LLC are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a Massachusetts group's latest bid to block the large offshore wind farm taking shape in waters off Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

  • December 11, 2024

    Ariz. Ending Local Taxes On Long-Term Residential Rentals

    Long-term rentals of residential property in Arizona will no longer be subject to local taxes or fees after Jan. 1 under recent legislation, the state Department of Revenue said Wednesday.

  • December 11, 2024

    CFPB's Chopra Won't Head For Exit Ahead Of Trump's Arrival

    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra signaled Wednesday that he won't leave his post early unless and until the incoming Trump administration fires him next month, indicating that he plans to keep running the agency in the meantime.

  • December 11, 2024

    Albertsons Sues Kroger In Chancery After Blocked Megadeal

    Grocery giant Albertsons, in a Wednesday lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, said Kroger did not put forth its "best efforts" into getting their planned $24.6 billion megamerger cleared while also announcing official plans to nix the deal, moves that came just one day after two judges blocked the proposed acquisition.

  • December 10, 2024

    3rd Circ. Judge Unsure Subpoena Chills Anti-Abortion Donors

    A Third Circuit panel on Tuesday weighed whether an anti-abortion pregnancy center would suffer irreparable harm absent a court order blocking the enforcement of a subpoena seeking information about its donors, questioning whether donors would be imminently chilled if their names are disclosed to New Jersey investigators.

  • December 10, 2024

    Abu Ghraib Torture Plaintiffs Say CACI Shoudn't Get New Trial

    Former prisoners tortured at the Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq, who were recently awarded $42 million in a case against defense contractor CACI, have pushed back at the company's request for a new trial, arguing it was rehashing arguments already rejected by the court.

  • December 10, 2024

    Property Manager At Center Of Gang Claims Sues Colo. AG

    A property management company caught up in a national controversy following allegations a Venezuelan gang had taken over some of its buildings in Aurora, Colorado, is suing the state to block probes by the state's attorney general into the company's management of its properties.

  • December 10, 2024

    Feds Propose Enviro Protections For Monarch Butterfly

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a proposed rule on Tuesday that would list the monarch butterfly as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act and designate 4,395 acres of critical habitat in coastal California.

  • December 10, 2024

    Use Of 1798 Law For Mass Removals Could Be Tough Sell

    If President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his promise to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants, he may have an uphill battle convincing federal courts that the law can be used to quell an immigrant "invasion."

  • December 10, 2024

    9th Circ. Says Idaho Can't 'Veto' Federal Law In Abortion Row

    The Ninth Circuit seemed poised on Tuesday to turn away fresh arguments from Idaho officials claiming a state abortion ban does not conflict with a federal emergency stabilizing law, after the officials said the federal government can't impose conditions on private hospitals receiving Medicare funds.

  • December 10, 2024

    5th Circ. Asks ATF Where To 'Draw The Line' In Trigger Ban

    A Fifth Circuit panel has pressed the government on how so-called "forced reset triggers" are different from bump stocks, asking where it was supposed to draw the line to determine whether the triggers turn semiautomatic firearms into federally banned machine guns.

  • December 10, 2024

    Kid Climate Activists Ask Justices To Save Twice-Nixed Case

    Youth plaintiffs have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their climate change lawsuit against the federal government but said the court should decide a key death penalty case first that involves a similar constitutional question.

  • December 10, 2024

    FCC Gives Church, Not University, Ill. Low Power FM Station

    A Pentecostal church has won a face-off with a Christian university over which one of them would get to build and run a new low power FM station in the northern Chicago suburbs after the Federal Communications Commission compared their applications and heard a complaint.

  • December 10, 2024

    Google Takes Aim At Ad Tech Antitrust Claims In States' Suit

    Google has blasted the lawsuit accusing it of illegally manipulating the advertising market, saying that Texas and the roughly dozen other states behind the litigation are "playing a shell game" in which they serially amend their complaints to "avoid the weaknesses of their antitrust claims."

  • December 10, 2024

    Ga. Justices Say Courts To Decide Whether Utilities Are Taxes

    A Georgia trial court wrongly decided it could not judge whether a county's utility rates are a backdoor tax on property owners, the state's highest court said Tuesday, ruling that a restriction on the state Legislature's power to "regulate or fix" rates doesn't bar review by the judicial branch.

  • December 10, 2024

    AFL-CIO Backs DOL In Effort To Keep H-2A Labor Rule Alive

    The AFL-CIO on Tuesday backed the U.S. Department of Labor's efforts to toss a suit in North Carolina federal court challenging the department's final rule protecting union-related activities for agricultural workers on seasonal H-2A visas, saying that it doesn't violate federal labor law.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Home Canning Makes Me A Better Lawyer

    Author Photo

    Making my own pickles and jams requires seeing a process through from start to finish, as does representing clients from the start of a dispute at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board through any appeals to the Federal Circuit, says attorney Kevin McNish.

  • CFPB School Lunch Focus Could Expand E-Payment Scrutiny

    Author Photo

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent spotlight on payment processing systems used to add funds to school lunch accounts shows its continued ambitions to further expand its supervisory power in the payments industry, all the way down to the school lunch market, says Tom Witherspoon at Stinson.

  • A Narrow Window Of Opportunity To Fix Energy Transmission

    Author Photo

    A post-election effort of the coming lame-duck congressional session may be the only possibility to pass bipartisan legislation to solve the national grid's capacity deficiencies, which present the greatest impediment to realizing state and federal energy transition and emissions reduction goals, says David Smith at Manatt.

  • How Project 2025 Could Upend Federal ESG Policies

    Author Photo

    If implemented, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy playbook for a Republican presidential administration, would likely seek to deploy antitrust law to target ESG initiatives, limit pension fund managers' focus to pecuniary factors and spell doom for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate rule, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • Compliance Pointers For Amended Pa. Data Breach Law

    Author Photo

    Recent updates to the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act include a requirement that organizations alert the state's attorney general of certain consumer data breach notifications, and several incident response and cybersecurity considerations will be necessary to ensure compliance, say Matthew Meade and Laura Decker at Eckert Seamans.

  • Smith's New Trump Indictment Is Case Study In Superseding

    Author Photo

    Special counsel Jack Smith’s recently revised Jan. 6 charges against former President Donald Trump provide lessons for prosecutors on how to effectively draft superseding indictments in order to buttress or streamline their case, as necessary, says Jessica Roth at Cardozo Law School.

  • Opinion

    FDIC's Foray Into Index Fund Rules Risks Regulatory Chaos

    Author Photo

    A proposed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rule concerning control over passive index fund investments in banks is outside the agency's remit, clashes with an existing Federal Reserve process and would inhibit competition in the index fund sector, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.

  • Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys

    Author Photo

    Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.

  • Opinion

    Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code

    Author Photo

    As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.

  • What To Make Of Dueling Corporate Transparency Act Rulings

    Author Photo

    Although challenges to the Corporate Transparency Act abound — as highlighted by recent federal court decisions from Alabama and Oregon taking opposite positions on its constitutionality — the act is still law, so companies should comply with their filing requirements or face the potential consequences, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Series

    The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan

    Author Photo

    Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.

  • California's AI Safety Bill Veto: The Path Forward

    Author Photo

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's veto of a bill that sought to impose stringent regulations on advanced artificial intelligence model development has sparked a renewed debate on how best to balance innovation with safety in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, say Bobby Malhotra and Carson Swope at Winston & Strawn.

  • Staying Off The CFPB's Financial Services Offender Registry

    Author Photo

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's soon-to-launch registry of financial services companies that have faced public enforcement orders is designed to ratchet up long-term scrutiny of entities that could become repeat offenders, so companies should take their new compliance and filing requirements seriously, say Andrea Mitchell and Chris Napier at Mitchell Sandler.

  • New TCPA Rule Faces Uncertain Future Post-Loper Bright

    Author Photo

    The Federal Communications Commission's new rule aiming to eliminate lead generators' use of unlawful robocalls is now in doubt with the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, and the Eleventh Circuit's Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC is poised to be a test case of the agency's ability to enforce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act post-Chevron, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • A Look At Calif.'s New AI Law For Health Insurers

    Author Photo

    A newly enacted California law prohibits artificial intelligence tools from making medical necessity determinations for healthcare service plans or disability insurers, addressing core questions that have arisen around AI's role in coverage decisions, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the Public Policy archive.
Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!