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Environmental
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February 27, 2025
Apple Falsely Touted Watches As 'Carbon Neutral,' Buyers Say
Apple Watch purchasers on Wednesday lodged a proposed class action in California federal court, claiming that the tech giant marketed various smartwatch products as "carbon neutral" despite Apple not actually providing "genuine, additional carbon reductions."
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February 27, 2025
Norfolk Southern Escapes Investors' Derailment Fraud Suit
A New York federal judge on Thursday dumped a proposed securities fraud class action alleging Norfolk Southern misled investors by falsely touting its commitments to safety while embarking on risky cost-cutting operational and staffing changes that ultimately led to 2023's fiery derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
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February 27, 2025
Don't Fault Sterilization Co. For What It Didn't Know, Jury Told
A sterilization company's expert told a Colorado state jury Thursday that the company can't be held responsible for not using pollution controls that didn't yet exist, arguing the company has always reasonably controlled emissions of a toxic sterilization chemical based on what was known at the time.
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February 27, 2025
Feds Can't Dodge Firefighting Foam Suits Yet, SC Judge Rules
A South Carolina federal judge on Thursday denied the U.S. government's push to escape dozens of suits over contamination allegedly stemming from its use of forever chemical-containing firefighting foams, saying cases involving a military base in New Mexico showed its global motion to dismiss to be inappropriate.
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February 27, 2025
Congress Prioritizes Enviro Regs On Nix List
Congressional Republicans have lined up several actions that would undo Biden-era environmental initiatives, from water heater efficiency standards to a Clean Air Act amendment that laid the groundwork for grants that are now in the Trump administration's crosshairs.
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February 27, 2025
Ga. Developers Accused Of Polluting During Solar Farm Build
A Floyd County, Georgia, couple has accused local developers of polluting streams and a lake on their property during the construction of a solar farm, in violation of the Clear Water Act.
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February 27, 2025
Feds Sued In Wash. For Denying Coastal Moth ESA Status
President Donald Trump's administration was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday in Washington federal court brought by a wildlife conservation group seeking Endangered Species Act protections for a Pacific Northwest moth facing a dwindling dune habitat amid coastal development and rising sea levels.
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February 27, 2025
Alsup Halts 'Illegal' Firings Of Probationary Federal Workers
U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Thursday temporarily blocked the mass firings of probationary federal employees ordered by President Donald Trump's administration, determining that the Office of Personnel Management illegally directed government agencies to terminate the probationary employees without authority to do so from Congress.
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February 27, 2025
Congress Sends EPA Methane Fee Rule Repeal To Trump's Desk
Congress on Thursday passed a resolution scrapping the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's imposition of a methane emissions fee on oil and gas companies, a move that may create uncertainty for industry as the fee remains legally mandated.
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February 27, 2025
Energy Co. Sued Over Rent, Radioactive Waste Disclosures
A Brooklyn property owner and two companies accused National Grid of owing rent on the site of a former industrial facility and impeding their businesses by not telling them quickly enough that there were radioactive materials there.
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February 26, 2025
Trump Orders Fed Agencies To Plan For Large Layoffs
The White House is telling federal agencies to submit plans for "large-scale" layoffs by mid-March, accusing them of siphoning funding for "unproductive and unnecessary programs" and "not producing results for the American public."
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February 26, 2025
Calif. AG's Hiring Of Lieff Cabraser In Climate Suit Challenged
California Attorney General Rob Bonta improperly hired Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP to assist with the state's climate deception suit against fossil fuel companies when attorneys in his office were capable of handling the litigation, the union representing the public lawyers contended in a newly filed state court complaint.
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February 26, 2025
USDA Unlawfully Purged Climate Info, Advocacy Groups Say
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has illegally erased scores of data-rich webpages focused on climate change from its websites in a sudden action that denies farmers access to essential information as the country faces extreme weather patterns, according to a lawsuit filed in New York federal court.
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February 26, 2025
EPA's Enviro Justice Reset Upending Community Relations
The Trump administration's undertaking to root out environmental justice staffers, programs and funding has sown confusion and ruptured relationships with communities that had worked more closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in recent years.
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February 26, 2025
Chicago Nonprofit Sues Trump Over Anti-DEI Orders
A Chicago-based women's trade group sued the Trump administration in Illinois federal court Wednesday, claiming his recent executive orders restricting federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs are unconstitutional and unlawfully chill the organization's free speech.
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February 26, 2025
Lawmakers Say DOI Energy Order Reviews Lack Transparency
A pair of Democratic federal lawmakers are demanding transparency from the U.S. Department of the Interior on the status of orders by Secretary Doug Burgum to "unleash American energy," saying the agency's leaders have yet to publicly disclose plans for national monuments and land withdrawn from mining development.
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February 26, 2025
Enviro Group Says Chemours Is Dumping PFAS In Ohio River
A nonprofit has asked a West Virginia federal court to stop Chemours from releasing a "forever chemical" into public drinking water sources along the Ohio River.
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February 26, 2025
Lloyds Seeks To Trim Oil Cos.' Suit Over Water Pollution Claim
Certain underwriters at Lloyd's of London urged a New Mexico federal court to toss bad faith claims that two oil and gas companies lodged in a coverage action over the release of a waste byproduct that triggered state-supervised remediation efforts, arguing they haven't even formally denied coverage yet.
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February 26, 2025
Wash. Judge Says Officials Are Immune To Energy Code Suit
A Seattle federal judge has thrown out a building industry coalition's renewed legal challenge to Washington regulations that discourage natural gas appliances in new construction, ruling the state officials named as defendants are protected because they aren't responsible for enforcing the rules.
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February 26, 2025
US Chamber Wants Calif. Climate Disclosure Regs Blocked
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have asked a California federal judge to block the state's corporate climate disclosure rules, arguing companies are already suffering harm due to laws that are "so overinclusive, they flunk any First Amendment test."
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February 26, 2025
Judge Won't Disqualify Firm In Solar Co. Fraud Fight
A federal judge denied Michigan residents' attempt to disqualify attorneys representing a bankrupt solar company's former founding CEO in their fraud case, holding that the law firm's allegedly obstructionist discovery tactics don't amount to an actual conflict of interest.
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February 26, 2025
Kirkland-Led Blackstone Wraps $5.6B Energy-Focused Fund
Private equity giant Blackstone, advised by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, on Wednesday announced that it wrapped its fourth energy transition-focused private equity fund after securing $5.6 billion of investor commitments.
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February 25, 2025
DC Judge Blocks Trump's Federal Funding Freeze
A D.C. federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from implementing a federal spending freeze while a group of nonprofits challenge the freeze, calling the measure "ill-conceived from the beginning."
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February 25, 2025
Pa. Biotech Co. Can't Escape $4M Trade Secrets Award
A Delaware vice chancellor declined Monday to nix a nearly $4 million arbitral award issued to Finnish company UPM-Kymmene Corp. in a long-running trade secrets dispute, ruling that a link between the arbitrator and the Finnish company's counsel at DLA Piper was "at most, an attenuated connection."
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February 25, 2025
Aircraft Parts Maker Hit With Class Claims Over Explosion
Philadelphia-area aerospace parts manufacturer SPS Technologies LLC has been hit with a class action over an explosion that resulted in a dayslong blaze at its Abington, Pennsylvania, facility that caused school and business closures as well as evacuations.
Expert Analysis
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Nippon, US Steel Face Long Odds On Merger Challenge
Following the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' review of Japan's Nippon Steel's proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel, the companies face a formidable uphill battle in challenging the president's exercise of authority to block the deal on national security grounds, say attorneys at Kirkland.
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Opinion
No, Litigation Funders Are Not 'Fleeing' The District Of Del.
A recent study claimed that litigation funders have “fled” Delaware federal court due to a standing order requiring disclosure of third-party financing, but responsible funders have no problem litigating in this jurisdiction, and many other factors could explain the decline in filings, say Will Freeman and Sarah Tsou at Omni Bridgeway.
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The Compliance Trends And Imperatives On Tap In 2025
The corporate ethics and compliance landscape is rapidly evolving, posing challenges from conflicting stakeholder expectations to technological disruptions, and businesses will need to explore human-centered, data-driven and evidence-based practices, says Hui Chen at CDE Advisors.
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Hydrogen Regs Will Provide More Certainty — If They Survive
Newly finalized regulations implementing the Section 45V clean hydrogen tax credit allow producers more flexibility, and should therefore help put the industry on more solid footing — but the incoming Trump administration and Republican Congress will have multiple options for overturning or altering the regulations, say attorneys at Steptoe.
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5 E-Discovery Predictions For 2025 And Beyond
In the year to come, e-discovery will be shaped by new and emerging trends, from the adoption of artificial intelligence provisions in protective orders, to the proliferation of emojis as a source of evidence in contemporary litigation, say attorneys at Littler.
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NY Plastic Pollution Verdict May Not Bode Well For Other Suits
The dismissal of New York state's public nuisance complaint against PepsiCo over pollution of the Buffalo River with the company's single use plastic bottles may not augur well for similar lawsuits filed by Baltimore and Los Angeles County, although tort law varies from state to state, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.
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Climate Disclosure Spotlight Shifts To 2 Calif. Laws
With Donald Trump's election spelling the all-but-certain demise of the proposed federal climate disclosure rules, new laws in California currently stand as the nation's only broadly applicable climate disclosure requirements — and their brevity is both a blessing and a curse, say attorneys at Davis Polk.
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Final Hydrogen Tax Credit Regs Add Flexibility For Producers
The recently released final regulations implementing the Inflation Reduction Act's clean hydrogen production tax credit offer taxpayers greater flexibility, reducing risk and creating more certainty for investments in the industry, thus diminishing — but not eliminating — the risk of legal challenges to the regulations, say attorneys at Steptoe.
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How Decline Of Deference Will Affect Trump Policymaking
An administrative law regime without Chevron deference may limit the Trump administration’s ability to implement new policies in the short term, but ultimately help it in the long term, and all parties with an interest in regulatory changes will have to take a fresh approach to litigation, say attorneys at Covington.
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Anticipating The Maritime Sector's Future Under Trump 2.0
With the Republicans taking control of a governance trifecta, the maritime sector should brace for both familiar leadership and new change that could significantly shift shipping and defense priorities, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Defense Strategies For Addressing Conspiracy-Minded Jurors
As conspiracy theories continue to proliferate and gain traction in the U.S., defense attorneys will need to consider ways to keep conspiracy-minded jurors from sitting on the jury, and to persuade them when this isn’t possible, say consultants at IMS Legal Strategies.
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7 Ways 2nd Trump Administration May Affect Partner Hiring
President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House will likely have a number of downstream effects on partner hiring in the legal industry, from accelerated hiring timelines to increased vetting of prospective employees, say recruiters at Macrae.
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E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Custodian Selection
Several recent rulings make clear that the proportionality of additional proposed custodians will depend on whether the custodians have unique relevant documents, and producing parties should consider whether information already in the record will show that they have relevant documents that otherwise might not be produced, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Impact Of Successful Challenges To SEC's Rulemaking Ability
In 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission faced significant legal challenges to its aggressive rulemaking agenda as several of its rules were vacated by the Fifth Circuit, which could hinder the SEC's ability to enact rules extending beyond express statutory authority in the future, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Justices Seem Focused On NEPA's Limits In Utah Rail Case
After last month's oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the court appears poised to forcefully reiterate that the National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to review only those environmental impacts within their control, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.