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Environmental
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April 16, 2024
Absent Proof Of Direct Effect, Pa. Sen. Loses Wastewater Row
A Pennsylvania state senator lacks individual standing to stop the state Department of Environmental Protection from allowing wastewater discharges into a tributary of the Susquehanna River because she hasn't given enough evidence that potential pollution would directly affect her, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
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April 16, 2024
EPA Urges 5th Circ. To Back Win In Texas Air Quality Suit
U.S. regulators and the Sierra Club urged the Fifth Circuit not to upset a panel's ruling finding the government legally accepted pollution data from the conservation group to apply a poor air quality designation in two Texas counties surrounding a coal-fired power plant.
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April 16, 2024
9th Circ. Upholds $64M Award In Water Contamination Suit
The Ninth Circuit upheld a $64 million award against a Parker Hannifin unit for cleanup costs tied to groundwater contamination in California's Santa Clarita Valley, and further held the district court erred in denying a finding of liability against the company.
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April 16, 2024
Florida Lost Its CWA Permitting Power. Now What?
A federal judge's decision to snatch away Florida's right to administer a Clean Water Act permitting program, which had been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, serves as a warning to other states that might be considering taking over those powers and responsibilities.
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April 16, 2024
W&T Offshore Accuses Pipeline Co. Of $3M Per Month Losses
A Gulf of Mexico oil producer claims it is losing millions of dollars a month from regulators' forced shut-in of a pipeline network it depends on in a lawsuit filed in Texas federal court alleging the pipeline company violated their contract to follow U.S. law and keep the line operating.
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April 16, 2024
Activist Axes $3.6B SilverBow Merger Plan Amid Proxy Fight
New York-based asset manager Kimmeridge said Tuesday it has scrapped its March offer to create a $3.6 billion Eagle Ford shale operator by combining the assets of Kimmeridge Texas Gas with those of shale driller SilverBow Resources, stating it will now focus on getting its three nominees elected to SilverBow's board.
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April 16, 2024
AIG Unit Must Cover $20M Botched Tunnel Project, Court Told
A Michigan county's water resources commissioner and sewage disposal system accused an AIG unit of failing to arbitrate their coverage claims over a design contractor's faulty work on a tunnel project, claiming they've suffered more than $20 million in damages.
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April 16, 2024
High Court Sides With Texas Landowners In Takings Dispute
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of landowners in a dispute with Texas, finding the owners can pursue their takings claim pursuant to state law but leaving open a larger Fifth Amendment takings question.
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April 16, 2024
DOL Finalizes Rule To Curb Miners' Exposure To Silica Dust
A U.S. Department of Labor agency released final regulations Tuesday that tighten limits on miners' exposure to workplace silica dust, a toxic substance that increases the risk of death and chronic health conditions.
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April 15, 2024
Ocean Agency Requires Cos. To Cover Well Razing Costs
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Monday unveiled a final rule aimed at ensuring oil and gas companies, and not taxpayers, are the ones footing the bill for decommissioning offshore wells and infrastructure.
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April 15, 2024
Colo. Ski Resort's Snowmaking Suit More Than A Decade Late
A Colorado federal judge on Monday tossed a lawsuit over a ski resort's permit to make snow using a nearby watershed that is a habitat for an imperiled trout species, siding with the U.S. Forest Service in concluding the resort's owner and operator should've filed the claim more than a decade earlier.
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April 15, 2024
Justices Leave Lower Courts To Parse Corporate 'Half-Truths'
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that corporate silence isn't enough to form the basis of a securities fraud suit pointedly declined to wade into the question of what counts as a "half-truth," leaving it to lower courts to wrestle with which corporate statements are blurry enough to sustain a shareholder class action.
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April 15, 2024
EPA Says Legacy Asbestos Poses Unreasonable Risk
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released on Monday its long-awaited draft for the second part of its asbestos risk evaluation, which determined handling asbestos associated with legacy uses presents undue human health risks.
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April 15, 2024
EPA Asks High Court To Preserve SF Water Pollution Regs
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve its water quality standards for San Francisco, which the city has challenged as vague, generic, and "virtually impossible" to comply with.
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April 15, 2024
Solar Power Co. Accuses Ex-Insider Of Building, Selling Rival
Delaware-chartered solar energy venture Volt Energy Utility LLC has sued a former top officer in Chancery Court, alleging that while employed by Volt, she secretly launched a competing company, contacted Volt's lenders and customers and then sold the new business to a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. for $216 million.
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April 15, 2024
Green Groups Defend Suit To Expel Ga. Island's Wild Horses
Conservation groups told a Georgia federal court on Monday that Peach State officials are not shielded from their lawsuit to make state and federal authorities remove feral horses they say are threatening endangered wildlife on Cumberland Island.
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April 15, 2024
Enviro Groups Urge 9th Circ. To Uphold Ax Of DOI Land Swap
Environmental groups and the National Congress of American Indians have thrown their support behind the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in calling on the Ninth Circuit to uphold a lower court ruling that the federal government's land exchange with agribusiness J.R. Simplot Co. was unlawful.
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April 15, 2024
Oil Co. Warns NC Justices Of 'Unfair' Results In Taking Case
An oil company and two other former plaintiffs from a settled state government land-taking proposed class action have warned the North Carolina Supreme Court that if the justices affirm an intermediate appellate ruling in a similar case, they would be reinforcing "unfair, unequal, disparate and divergent" treatment of property owners.
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April 15, 2024
Biden Approves Disaster Declarations For States, Tribe
The states of Oregon and California, along with one of their tribal communities, will receive federal emergency aid to help recover from severe winter storms that caused widespread damage and killed several people in January and February.
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April 15, 2024
Vermont's 3M PFAS Suit Remanded To State Court
A Vermont federal judge has sent the state's "forever chemicals" suit against 3M Co., E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co. and others back to state court, finding that 3M filed its notice of removal too late after learning that the claims concerned a facility that made products for the military.
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April 15, 2024
NH Power Plant Co. Can Send Dual-Path Ch. 11 Plan To A Vote
The operator of a New Hampshire power plant fueled by scrap wood can seek creditors' approval of its Chapter 11 proposal, through which the debtor would either sell its assets or hand ownership of the reorganized business to lenders, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled Monday.
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April 15, 2024
Food Supplier Sues Ga. City Over $1.5M Wastewater Penalties
The city of Dawsonville, Georgia, and seven city officials have been sued in Georgia federal court by a food supplier that alleges the city threatened to shut off water and sewage service to its poultry processing plant based on more than $1.5 million in "illegally assessed" wastewater discharge penalties.
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April 15, 2024
4th Circ. Upholds W.Va.'s Win In Coal Mine Cleanup Suit
The Fourth Circuit on Monday affirmed a West Virginia federal court's order ending developers' allegations that the state's environmental regulators' reclamation efforts at an old coal mining site constituted illegal dumping, finding the lower court correctly concluded the efforts are exempt from regulations prohibiting open dumps.
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April 15, 2024
Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court
Last week, Delaware justices mulled whether one Chancery Court vice chancellor properly voided four company bylaws — just as another vice chancellor voided one more. Fights among Truth Social investors continued, and shareholders launched new cases involving Macy's, United Airlines, and Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC and Stone Point Capital LLC.
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April 15, 2024
Republican AGs Ask 5th Circ. To Knock Out DOL Rule For ESG
A group of Republican-led states have urged the Fifth Circuit to scrap a U.S. Department of Labor rule allowing retirement advisers to consider social and political issues when choosing investments, arguing that the agency is flouting protections set in stone by federal benefits law.
Expert Analysis
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Reducing Carbon Footprint Requires A Tricky Path For CRE
As real estate owners find themselves caught between rapidly evolving environmental, social and governance initiatives and complicated societal debate, they will need to carefully establish formal plans to remain both competitive and compliant, say Michael Kuhn and Mahira Khan at Jackson Walker.
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The Corporate Disclosure Tug-Of-War's Free Speech Issues
The continuing conflict over corporate disclosure requirements — highlighted by a lawsuit against Missouri's anti-ESG rules — has important implications not just for investors and regulated entities but also for broader questions about the scope of the First Amendment, say Colin Pohlman, and Jane Luxton and Paul Kisslinger at Lewis Brisbois.
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3 Administrative Law Lessons From 5th Circ. Appliance Ruling
Showing that mundane details can be outcome-determinative, the Fifth Circuit's recent decision in Louisiana v. U.S. Department of Energy — that the government's repeal of rules affecting dishwashers and laundry machines is invalid — highlights the relationship between regulatory actions and statutory language, say Michael Showalter and Vyasa Babu at ArentFox Schiff.
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A Look Into How Jurors Reach High Damages Awards
In the wake of several large jury awards, Richard Gabriel and Emily Shaw at Decision Analysis shed light on challenges that jurors have in deciding them, the nonevidentiary and extra-legal methods they use to do so, and new research about the themes and jury characteristics of high-damages jurors.
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Aviation Back On Course, But Keep Seat Belts Fastened
While the airline industry finally returned to profitability last year for the first time since the onset of COVID-19, and is poised for historic levels of traffic in 2024, supply chain problems and economic and geopolitical uncertainty persist — so more turbulence may lie ahead, say Kevin Lewis and Bart Biggers at Sidley.
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Preparing For A New Wave Of Litigation Under Silicosis Rules
After the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of California issued an emergency temporary standard to combat noncompliance with assessments of workers' exposure to particles of crystalline silica, companies that manufacture, distribute or sell silica-containing products will need aggressive case-specific discovery to navigate a new wave of litigation, say attorneys at Dechert.
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Managing Competing Priorities In Witness Preparation
There’s often a divide between what attorneys and witnesses want out of the deposition process, but litigation teams can use several strategies to resolve this tension and help witnesses be more comfortable with the difficult conditions of testifying, say Ava Hernández and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.
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Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout
While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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Series
ESG Around The World: Brazil
Environmental, social and governance issues have increasingly translated into new legislation in Brazil since 2020, and in the wake of these recently enacted regulations, we are likely to see a growing number of legal disputes in the largest South American country related to ESG issues such as greenwashing if companies are not prepared to adequately adapt and comply, say attorneys at Mattos Filho.
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Understanding And Working With The Millennials On Your Jury
Every trial attorney will be facing a greater proportion of millennials on their jury, as they now comprise the largest generation in the U.S., and winning them over requires an understanding of their views on politics, corporations and damages, says Clint Townson at Townson Litigation Consulting.
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Vagueness In Calif. Climate Law Makes Compliance Tricky
California's recently enacted Voluntary Carbon Market Disclosures Act requires companies making claims of carbon neutrality, or significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, to disclose information supporting those claims — but vague and conflicting language in the statute poses multiple problems for businesses, say John Rousakis and Chris Bowman at O'Melveny.
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Series
Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.
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Harmonizing Agricultural And Clean Energy Goals
Congress' extension of the Farm Bill offers a chance to more thoroughly consider innovation and investments that could transform the competition between farmers and solar developers into synergistic agrivoltaic systems, which use land for both agriculture and solar energy generation, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.
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CFTC Moves May Boost Interest In Voluntary Carbon Markets
As companies try to reduce their net greenhouse gas emissions, many have been cautious about embracing voluntary carbon credit markets — but recent moves by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to regulate this sector may address some of its well-known challenges, say Deborah North and Laura Daugherty at Cleary.
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Key Maritime Law Issues In 2024: Election-Year Unknowns
In the final installment of this three-part article reviewing the top challenges for the maritime industry this year, Sean Pribyl at Holland & Knight examines how the uncertainty surrounding the forthcoming U.S. election may affect the maritime sector — especially companies involved in offshore wind and deep-sea mining.