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Environmental
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July 22, 2024
NC State Resolves Cancer Patient's Fight To Test Building
North Carolina State University and a professor with cancer have ended a dispute over testing a campus building that contains cancer-causing chemicals, with the school telling the state's highest court the parties are ready to move on from that part of the legal dispute.
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July 22, 2024
NY Appeals Court Revives Cayuga Lake PFAS Suit
A Finger Lakes conservation group can challenge a permit state regulators issued for a solid waste facility over possible "forever chemicals" pollution to Cayuga Lake, a New York state appeals court ruled, holding that the group has standing to try to get the permit thrown out.
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July 22, 2024
Biofuel Groups Back EPA Fuel Regs In DC Circ. Fight
Several biofuel trade groups are urging the D.C. Circuit to reject arguments the oil and fuel industry and environmentalists are making in challenges to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's renewable fuel blending requirements.
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July 22, 2024
Fried Frank, Skadden Steer $2B Sale Of Dover's ESG Biz
Manufacturing conglomerate Dover Corp., advised by Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, on Monday announced plans to sell its Environmental Solutions Group business to Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson-led manufacturing company Terex Corp. for $2 billion in cash.
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July 19, 2024
Utility, Attys 'Colluded' On $178M Ore. Wildfire Deal, Court Told
Berkshire Hathaway-owned utility PacifiCorp is facing allegations from plaintiffs firms that it "colluded" with a trio of other law firms to reach a "paltry" $178 million settlement with survivors of deadly Oregon wildfires allegedly sparked by the utility's equipment, according to a filing in Oregon state court.
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July 19, 2024
More Airwaves Needed For Power Grid Upgrades, FCC Told
Power companies are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to help free up more spectrum for utilities, telling the agency that opening up spectrum currently committed to public safety use could be a win-win.
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July 19, 2024
Pa. Justices Let Enviro Groups Join Cap-And-Trade Fray
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was of at least four different minds Thursday when it ruled that several environmental groups could finally intervene in litigation that has blocked the state from joining a regional carbon cap-and-trade program.
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July 19, 2024
DC Circ. Upholds EPA's Revised Biogas Accounting Rules
The D.C. Circuit on Friday backed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's revamp of how it accounts for renewable transportation fuel derived from biogas, rejecting a petition from an industry group that challenged the regulations as unduly burdensome and an agency overreach.
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July 19, 2024
DC Circ. Sides With FERC In Wind Farm Hookup Cost Fight
A D.C. Circuit panel on Friday backed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in disputes related to the transmission system upgrade costs that Tenaska Clear Creek Wind LLC faced to connect a 242-megawatt wind farm in northwest Missouri to the grid.
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July 19, 2024
Signature Gatherers Must Comply With Mich. Election Law
A Michigan appellate panel said in a published opinion that petition signature gatherers must strictly comply with state election law, finding that the gatherers' failure to identify their town of residence rendered invalid every signature on petitions seeking to put a referendum question regarding a solar energy ordinance on the ballot.
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July 19, 2024
NJ Towns Not Liable For Water Contaminants, Panel Rules
A panel of New Jersey state appeals court judges ruled Friday that municipalities charging for water service aren't in an implied contractual relationship with residents and thus can't be found in breach of contract for elevated contaminant levels in the water.
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July 19, 2024
DC Circ. Won't Block EPA Power Plant Emissions Rule
The D.C. Circuit refused Friday to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rule curbing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, saying challengers haven't shown they're likely to succeed in overturning the regulations.
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July 19, 2024
DuPont Loses 2nd Bid To Dodge EPA Air Pollution Lawsuit
A Louisiana federal judge has rejected a DuPont unit's second effort to escape a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over property the company leased to a neoprene-maker that's allegedly emitting unsafe amounts of a likely carcinogenic chemical.
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July 19, 2024
Occidental Could Sell $3.6B CrownRock Stake To Ecopetrol
Occidental Petroleum said in a securities filing Friday that it could sell a 30% stake in CrownRock — which Occidental is under contract to buy for $12 billion — to Columbia's Ecopetrol for $3.6 billion.
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July 18, 2024
5th Circ. Remands ESG Rule Row Citing Chevron's End
The Fifth Circuit on Thursday instructed a Texas federal court to reconsider a Biden administration rule allowing retirement plan advisers to consider environmental, social and governance factors when choosing investments, pointing to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have "upended" the legal landscape.
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July 18, 2024
Tribes Move Step Closer To $5B Water Rights Settlement
Leaders of the Navajo Nation and the Hopi and Southern San Juan Paiute tribes have signed a landmark settlement agreement that proposes to bring reliable, safe and clean drinking water to the tribes as they await final approval of a $5 billion federal bill that backs the same endeavor.
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July 18, 2024
DOE Plans $861M Support For PR Solar, Storage Project
The U.S. Department of Energy on Thursday said it's conditionally committing to a loan guarantee of up to $861.3 million for two battery storage equipped solar farms and two standalone battery energy storage systems in Puerto Rico that will help the island meet its energy goals.
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July 18, 2024
9th Circ. Signals Support For Alaska Salmon Fishery
A Ninth Circuit panel on Thursday leaned toward allowing government-approved commercial salmon fishing in Southeast Alaska, with one judge saying the economic hardship indigenous communities would face without fishing outweighs the "enormous uncertainty" of impacts on a small population of orca whales that feed on the fish.
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July 18, 2024
Enviro Groups Deploy Chevron Ruling In Pipeline Case
Environmental groups suing the federal government over the reissuance of a nationwide Clean Water Act permit that can be used for oil and gas pipelines told a D.C. federal judge Thursday that the recent overturning of the Chevron deference bolsters their effort to get the permit thrown out.
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July 18, 2024
State Of 2024 Energy Dealmaking: Midyear Report
Energy dealmaking in the first half of 2024 has, in many ways, picked up where 2023 left off, but companies also increasingly have an eye on the U.S. presidential election this fall that could bring drastic change to the landscape. Here are some transactional trends that have stood out to energy attorneys so far this year.
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July 18, 2024
6th Circ. Looks To Wash Hands Of Waters Of US Appeal
An exasperated Sixth Circuit panel on Thursday looked for an easy way to dispatch Kentucky and industry groups' appeal of the dismissal of their challenges to a federal government rule defining the scope of the Clean Water Act.
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July 18, 2024
Democrats Float Prison Environmental Health Bill
Congressional Democrats on Thursday proposed legislation that would fund programs to improve air quality, water quality, temperature, mold, contagious diseases and other issues in federal prisons.
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July 18, 2024
Refiner, Distributor To Pay $1M Fine In EPA Biofuel Case
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it has slapped an Arizona-based petroleum products company and its affiliate with a more than $1 million civil penalty for violations of the Clean Air Act's conventional and renewable fuel requirements.
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July 18, 2024
Consumers Hit CenterPoint With 2nd Class Action Over Beryl
CenterPoint Energy Inc. has been hit with a second proposed class action over widespread power outages in the Houston area following Hurricane Beryl, this time from consumers in the Houston-Galveston area who were impacted by the storm.
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July 18, 2024
Judge With Lake Property Exits $217M Dam Repair Tax Suit
A Michigan federal judge said he would step aside in a fight over a $217 million tax assessment to fund dam reconstruction because he's part of the assessment district, though he warned that hundreds of plaintiffs could have their own conflicts.
Expert Analysis
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NY's Vision For Grid Of The Future: Flexible, Open, Affordable
Acknowledging that New York state's progress toward its climate goals is stalling, the New York Public Service Commission's recent "Grid of the Future" order signals a move toward more flexible, cost-effective solutions — and suggests potential opportunities for nonutility participation, say Daniel Spitzer and William McLaughlin at Hodgson Russ.
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Trump Hush Money Case Offers Master Class In Trial Strategy
The New York criminal hush money trial of former President Donald Trump typifies some of the greatest challenges that lawyers face in crafting persuasive presentations, providing lessons on how to handle bad facts, craft a simple story that withstands attack, and cross-examine with that story in mind, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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Leveraging Insurance Amid Microplastics Concerns
A pending microplastics lawsuit — New York v. PepsiCo Inc. — may be a harbinger of what is to come for companies whose products are exposed to the environment, so any company considering how to address microplastics liability should include a careful assessment of the potential for insurance coverage in its due diligence, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.
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Series
Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System
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.
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What A Louisiana Ruling Means For Pipeline Crossings
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.
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ECHR Ruling May Pave Path For A UK Climate Damage Tort
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.
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Opinion
Climate Change Shouldn't Be Litigated Under State Laws
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.
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Regulating Resurrected Species Under The ESA
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.
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E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data
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.
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What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking
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.
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IP Considerations For Companies In Carbon Capture Sector
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.
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Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes
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.
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5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow
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.
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What's Extraordinary About Challenges To SEC Climate Rule
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.