Environmental

  • October 15, 2024

    Polsinelli Adds Merck Legal Director To Energy Group In Philly

    An attorney who specializes in representing energy and utility clients and has experience as in-house counsel has left Merck, where she was a legal director for nearly three years, to become the first new lateral shareholder to join Polsinelli's Philadelphia office since the firm opened its doors there in August.

  • October 15, 2024

    EPA Pitches Deal For Endocrine-Disruptor Screening Suit

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a plan to settle a lawsuit that farmworker and environmental health groups brought over its alleged inaction on an Endocrine-Disruptor Screening Program meant to consider how pesticide chemicals may harm people's hormone systems.

  • October 15, 2024

    Law Firms Diverge As Anti-ESG Pushback Continues

    A continuing onslaught of legislation and litigation opposing corporate environmental, social and governance actions has created a fork in the road for law firms, with some choosing to scale back efforts and others pushing ahead with their internal ESG and diversity, equity and inclusion goals.

  • October 15, 2024

    The 2024 Law360 Pulse Social Impact Leaders

    Check out our Social Impact Leaders ranking, analysis and interactive graphics to see which firms stand out for their engagement with social responsibility and commitment to pro bono service.

  • October 11, 2024

    11th Circ. Reinstates, Remands Alabama Burial Ground Fight

    An Eleventh Circuit panel on Friday vacated and remanded a lower court's order in a fight between two Alabama tribes over a sacred burial site, saying it failed to review the litigation's sovereign immunity issues on a claim-by-claim basis.

  • October 11, 2024

    Tribes, Enviro Orgs. Can Defend EPA In Pebble Mine Row

    A federal judge in Alaska has allowed a slew of environmental groups and Alaskan tribes to defend the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to block the planned creation of the controversial Pebble Mine, saying they made a convincing argument that intervention is warranted.

  • October 11, 2024

    Up Next At High Court: CBD Injuries & The Clean Water Act

    The U.S. Supreme Court will be closed Monday, but the justices will return to the bench Tuesday to hear arguments over whether the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act allows litigants to pursue claims of economic harm tied to personal injuries, and how specific pollutant discharge limits have to be under the Clean Water Act.

  • October 11, 2024

    Wash. DOT Settles Deadly Highway Tree Fall Suit For $775K

    The Washington State Department of Transportation will pay $775,000 to the surviving members of a family who sued the agency after a Douglas fir fell on their vehicle while they were traveling along a state highway on the Olympic Peninsula in 2017, causing two deaths and devastating injuries to the survivors.

  • October 11, 2024

    6th Circ. Blocks Work On Tenn. Pipeline For TVA Gas Plant

    A split Sixth Circuit panel on Friday temporarily blocked construction of a Kinder Morgan unit's pipeline that would serve a Tennessee Valley Authority natural gas-fired power plant in Cumberland City, as conservation groups challenge Clean Water Act permits Tennessee and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued for the pipeline.

  • October 11, 2024

    Monsanto Inks $35M Deal With LA For Waterway Cleanup

    Los Angeles announced Friday it inked a $35 million settlement with Bayer AG's Monsanto Co. and two other companies over their alleged contamination of the city's bodies of water with toxic chemicals, ending the 2½-year-old lawsuit, with the companies agreeing to various cleanup efforts and reimbursement for previous costs.

  • October 11, 2024

    Unions Say EPA Rule Contains Protective Wear Loophole

    Two major trade unions told the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a rule that lets the agency consider the use of personal protective equipment when conducting risk evaluations, in violation of federal law.

  • October 11, 2024

    Parties Look To Vacate 40-Year-Old Ore. Tribal Fishing Decree

    The U.S. government, Oregon and a Native American tribe are asking a federal court to vacate a 1980 agreement that established hunting and fishing rights for the tribe, arguing that the consent decree was a product of its time and represented a distorted view on tribal sovereignty.

  • October 11, 2024

    Bellwether Plaintiffs Let Halliburton Escape Pollution Dispute

    Two bellwether plaintiffs in litigation seeking to hold the owners and operators of a former pipe manufacturing facility liable for contamination have agreed to permanently drop their claims against Halliburton Energy Services.

  • October 11, 2024

    Feds Designate 3rd-Largest Marine Sanctuary Off Calif. Coast

    The Biden administration on Friday said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is designating more than 4,500 square miles of ocean off California's central coast as the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

  • October 11, 2024

    DOI Defends Offshore Lease Schedule At DC Circ.

    The U.S. Department of the Interior defended its scaled-back offshore leasing program for 2024-2029 from dueling challenges at the D.C. Circuit, arguing it relied on "extensive quantitative and qualitative analyses" that it prepared over several years to reach its decision.

  • October 11, 2024

    FERC Defends Keeping Calif. In Hydro Permitting Role

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission defended its conclusion that California's water board didn't waive its Clean Water Act permitting authority over two hydroelectric dams, telling the D.C. Circuit there's nothing to suggest there was a coordinated effort to string out the permitting process.

  • October 11, 2024

    Conn. Judge OKs $5M Deal To Resolve AG's Vision Solar Case

    A Connecticut state judge approved a $5 million judgment to resolve an unfair trade practices suit Attorney General William Tong brought against Vision Solar LLC.

  • October 11, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Says USMCA Review Bars Importer's Duty Suit

    The Federal Circuit has backed the U.S. Court of International Trade's dismissal of a Canadian lumber company's challenge to increased tariffs, saying the U.S. court couldn't take the case once a U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement panel began reviewing the duties.

  • October 11, 2024

    Hurricane Effects Prompt More NC Court Deadline Extensions

    Chief North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby on Friday gave litigants in the state's western counties another two-week extension on their court deadlines as they deal with Hurricane Helene, writing in his order that the region is still plagued by "catastrophic conditions" due to the severe weather and flooding.

  • October 11, 2024

    More Ga. PFAS Suits Are Coming. Here's How Attys Prepare

    Leading attorneys in PFAS litigation say new regulations and ever-increasing lawsuits require attorneys to think carefully about proactive measures clients can take to limit PFAS use, and about the latest scientific research into how the so-called forever chemicals impact humans and the environment.

  • October 11, 2024

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

    This past week in London has seen billionaire Lakshmi Mittal sue steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta in a long-running clash to claw back €140 million ($153 million) of debt, a high-profile AI researcher take action against the Intellectual Property Office to register his software as a listed patent inventor and troubled housing trust Home Reit face a claim by a real estate developer. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • October 11, 2024

    Nippon To Sell JV Stake For $1 In Push To Close US Steel Deal

    Japan's Nippon Steel said Friday it has agreed to sell its stake in a 50-50 joint venture with ArcelorMittal to the European steelmaker for just $1, as Nippon seeks to address any antitrust concerns over its planned $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel.

  • October 10, 2024

    Trade Group, Enviros Clash Over EPA Methylene Chloride Rule

    American Chemistry Council and the Sierra Club are taking aim at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's methylene chloride rule, with the industry group telling the Fifth Circuit the agency overstepped when it outright banned most applications of the chemical for no valid reason and the conservation organization arguing it didn't go far enough.

  • October 10, 2024

    Wash. Judge Condemns Monsanto's Bid To Delay PCB Trial

    A Washington state judge grew frustrated on Thursday with Monsanto's eleventh-hour attempt to shelve a PCB poisoning tort headed to trial next week until the state Supreme Court weighs in on a similar case, calling out the chemical giant for taking stances on "both sides of the fence" about the stakes on appeal.

  • October 10, 2024

    Colo. Wolf Release Challenge Loses Some Of Its Bite

    A federal judge on Thursday dismissed most claims in a lawsuit challenging Colorado environmental agencies' plan to reintroduce gray wolves from Oregon, concluding that the state's plan wasn't a major federal action, so the Colorado federal court couldn't hear the claims against the state.

Expert Analysis

  • How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.

  • Expect The Unexpected: Contracts For Underground Projects

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    Recent challenges encountered by the Mountain Valley Pipeline project underscore the importance of drafting contracts for underground construction to account for unexpected site conditions, associated risks and compliance with applicable laws, say Jill Jaffe and Brenda Lin at Nossaman.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • What NYC's Green Fast Track Means For Affordable Housing

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    New York City's Green Fast Track for Housing initiative, which went into effect last month, aims to speed up the environmental review process for modest residential developments and could potentially pave the way for similar initiatives in other cities, say Vivien Krieger and Rachel Scall at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Roundup

    After Chevron

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    Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard in June, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 36 different rulemaking and litigation areas.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Expect Few Changes In ITC Rulemaking

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion overruling the Chevron doctrine will have less impact on the U.S. International Trade Commission than other agencies administering trade statutes, given that the commission exercises its congressionally granted authority in a manner that allows for consistent decision making at both agency and judicial levels, say attorneys at Polsinelli.

  • Opinion

    Reform NEPA To Speed Mining Permits, Clean Energy Shift

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    It is essential to balance responsible regulatory oversight with permit approvals for mining projects that are needed for the transition to renewable energy — and with the National Environmental Policy Act being one of the leading causes of permit delays, reform is urgently needed, say Ana Maria Gutierrez and Michael Miller at Womble Bond.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • Calif. Long-Tail Ruling Continues Policyholder-Friendly Trend

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    The California Supreme Court's recent ruling in Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Cement & Gypsum, rejecting horizontal policy exhaustion, was the latest in a string of its decisions involving insurance coverage for continuous or progressive injury claims that favor policyholders, say Billie Mandelbaum and David Goodwin at Covington.

  • A Case Study For Calif. Cities In Water Utility Takeovers

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    With growing water scarcity and drier weather looming, some local governments in California have sought to acquire investor-owned water utilities by eminent domain — but the 2016 case of Claremont v. Golden State Water is a reminder that such municipalization attempts must meet certain statutory requirements, say attorneys at Nossaman.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

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    The second quarter of 2024 saw less enforcement activity in the realm of New York financial services, but brought substantial regulatory and legislative developments, including state regulators' guidance on cybersecurity compliance and customer service processes for virtual currency entities, say James Vivenzio and Andrew Lucas at Perkins Coie.

  • Series

    Skiing And Surfing Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    The skills I’ve learned while riding waves in the ocean and slopes in the mountains have translated to my legal career — developing strong mentor relationships, remaining calm in difficult situations, and being prepared and able to move to a backup plan when needed, says Brian Claassen at Knobbe Martens.

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