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Environmental
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October 25, 2024
Biden Admin Puts Up $4B For Clean Energy, Grid Projects
The Biden administration on Friday said it's handing out approximately $4 billion in combined grants and loans for clean energy purchases and grid upgrades for a slew of states, tribes and electricity co-operatives.
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October 25, 2024
DC Circ. Won't Block EPA Emissions Rule For Steel Plants
A split D.C. Circuit panel has denied bids by U.S. Steel Corp. and Cardinal-Cliffs Inc. to hit pause on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule setting emission standards for integrated iron and steel manufacturing facilities.
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October 25, 2024
BLM Gives Green Light To Nevada Lithium Mine
The Biden administration has announced that it's approving the proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in southeast Nevada, a decision a conservation group said threatens to push an imperiled wildflower species into extinction.
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October 25, 2024
Maritime Unions Tell EPA To Reject Calif. Workboat Rule
Three maritime labor unions and a tugboat trade association called on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan to deny California's request for a Clean Air Act waiver to enforce its rule mandating the installation of diesel particulate filter technology on workboats.
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October 24, 2024
EPA Agrees To Review Nitrogen Oxides Standard By 2028
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it would revisit its national ambient air quality standards for nitrogen oxides by 2028 under a proposed consent decree reached with conservation groups.
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October 24, 2024
DOJ Reaches $102M Deal In Baltimore Bridge Collapse Suit
The owner and the manager of the cargo ship that slammed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March has agreed to pay $102 million to settle the U.S. Department of Justice's civil lawsuit alleging gross negligence on their part killed six people and destroyed a vital transportation corridor.
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October 24, 2024
Enviro Attys Must Teach Judges Science, Wash. Justice Says
Attorneys shouldn't assume that judges are up to speed on scientific evidence that they're reviewing and instead should work on building judges' knowledge and helping them "feel smart," a Washington Supreme Court justice told environmental lawyers on Thursday.
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October 24, 2024
Colo. Justices Hesitant To Extend Personhood To Elephants
Colorado Supreme Court justices appeared unlikely Thursday to grant habeas corpus rights to elephants in a zoo, repeatedly asking an animal rights group seeking to send the elephants to a sanctuary where the court should draw the line on personhood.
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October 24, 2024
Dems From Storm-Impacted States Call For Probes Of Misinfo
Democratic lawmakers from states recently impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton asked the leadership of three House committees on Wednesday to investigate and hold hearings on the "troubling surge" in the spread of misinformation, scams and conspiracy theories about the storms on social media.
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October 24, 2024
EPA, Air Force Commit To PFAS Plan For Tucson Airport
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Air Force said they're committing to a framework to address "forever chemical" contamination at the Tucson International Airport Area Superfund Site in southeastern Arizona.
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October 24, 2024
EPA Can't Rush Truck Electrification, DC Circ. Hears
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a trucking industry group have thrown their support behind challengers' attempts to upend the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles, telling the D.C. Circuit that the agency is trying to accomplish too much too soon.
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October 24, 2024
DC Circ. Ruling Endangers Distressed Texas Area, Port Says
The owner of the Port of Brownsville in Texas is urging the D.C. Circuit to consider the devastating impacts a panel's decision to vacate Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reauthorization orders for two major liquefied natural gas projects threatens to impose on the region.
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October 24, 2024
EPA Finalizes New Standards For Lead Paint Dust
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday said it's finalizing standards to better protect people from lead paint dust exposure, reducing the level considered hazardous and the levels that can remain after abatement work.
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October 24, 2024
Mining Eligible In Final Regs For Energy Manufacturing Credit
The U.S. Treasury Department's final rules released Thursday on a valuable tax credit for manufacturing key components and materials used in clean energy technologies allow producers to take into account the costs to mine and extract critical minerals.
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October 23, 2024
Conn. Judge Rejects Utility's Defenses In Site Cleanup Battle
An Avangrid Inc. unit hasn't sufficiently rebutted the Connecticut government's claims that it's taking too long to clean up the long-defunct English Station power plant site in New Haven under a partial consent order, a state court judge has ruled.
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October 23, 2024
Pa. County Defends Climate Change Suit Against BP, Chevron
BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and other major oil companies can't argue that a federal environmental statute sinks a climate change lawsuit because the claims fall outside of the law's purview, a Pennsylvania county told a state court.
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October 23, 2024
EPA's GHG Power Plant Rule Is Achievable, Scientists Say
A half-dozen prominent scientists and engineers have told the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's plan to tap carbon capture and sequestration technology to reduce power plants' greenhouse gas pollution is on point and readily achievable.
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October 23, 2024
No More Coverage For Paper Co.'s Pollution Claim, Panel Says
A WestRock Co. subsidiary that owned a Montana paper mill later identified as a Superfund site isn't entitled to additional coverage from its AIG insurer, an Illinois state appeals court ruled, saying two pollution conditions on the property were related and subject to a single $5 million limit of liability.
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October 23, 2024
Religion Law Can't Save Sacred Worship Site, High Court Told
A law designed to protect religious freedom can't help an Apache nonprofit's bid to save a sacred worship site in Arizona from destruction, the federal government said, arguing that the tribe is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to nullify a congressional statute crafted to allow federal third-party land transfers.
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October 23, 2024
USDA Unveils $1.5B In Conservation, Climate-Smart Projects
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday revealed a $1.5 billion investment in 92 partner-driven conservation projects through the agency's Regional Conservation Partnership Program.
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October 23, 2024
Judge Says Ex-Steward Hospital Nurse Row Out Of His Hands
A Texas bankruptcy judge Wednesday declined to order the new owner of former Steward Health Care hospitals in Massachusetts to take back changes to nurses' union contracts it assumed under his sale order, saying it wasn't up to him to make the call.
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October 23, 2024
'Alkaline Water' Co. Hit With $5B In Punitive Damages
A Nevada jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages Wednesday in a 15-plaintiff trial over liver damage linked to Real Water's "alkaline water," the largest verdict yet in ongoing litigation against the bankrupt company.
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October 23, 2024
EPA Can't Restart Crafting Smog Rule, DC Circ. Told
A group of Democratic-led state governments is telling the D.C. Circuit that the Clean Air Act doesn't mandate reconsideration of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2023 "Good Neighbor" emissions regulation as two steel manufacturers say.
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October 23, 2024
Roundup Suit Pared As Preemption Claim Sways Mass. Judge
A Massachusetts judge has dismissed portions of a suit claiming a woman's use of the weedkiller Roundup caused her cancer, ruling a federal labeling law preempts her theory that Monsanto failed to warn consumers about the chemical's dangers.
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October 23, 2024
Chemical Co. GC Fires Back At Pregnancy Bias Claims In NJ
Arxada and its general counsel struck back at a former in-house attorney's claims in a New Jersey state court lawsuit that the specialty chemicals company unlawfully dismissed her in the days after she talked about taking leave to recover from a miscarriage.
Expert Analysis
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Electrifying Transportation With Public-Private Partnerships
Many clean energy goals remain public policy abstractions that face a challenging road to realization — but public-private partnership models could be a valuable tool to electrify the transportation sector, says Michael Blackwell at Husch Blackwell.
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Navigating The New Rise Of Greenwashing Litigation
As greenwashing lawsuits continue to gain momentum with a shift in focus to carbon-neutrality claims, businesses must exercise caution and ensure transparency in their environmental marketing practices, taking cues from recent legal challenges in the airline industry, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
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.
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Expect The Unexpected: Contracts For Underground Projects
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.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
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.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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What NYC's Green Fast Track Means For Affordable Housing
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.
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Opinion
Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
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.
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3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron
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.
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Roundup
After Chevron
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.
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Series
After Chevron: Expect Few Changes In ITC Rulemaking
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.
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Opinion
Reform NEPA To Speed Mining Permits, Clean Energy Shift
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.
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Opinion
Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem
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.
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Calif. Long-Tail Ruling Continues Policyholder-Friendly Trend
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.