Environmental

  • January 07, 2025

    Oilfield Services Firm Flowco Set to Drill Down On $392M IPO

    Oilfield equipment and services provider Flowco Holdings Inc. on Tuesday launched plans for an estimated $392 million initial public offering, represented by Sidley Austin LLP and underwriters' counsel Latham & Watkins LLP, marking the latest company to join the new year's IPO pipeline.

  • January 07, 2025

    Cato Institute Urges Justices To Hear Jury Right Case

    The Cato Institute asked the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday to accept a social media influencer's certification petition over the denial of a jury trial for a misdemeanor, saying the erosion of the Constitutional jury right for "all crimes" goes against the founders' intentions.

  • January 07, 2025

    Feds Urge 9th Circ. To Uphold Ringed Seal Protections

    The federal government and environmentalists on Monday asked the Ninth Circuit to keep Endangered Species Act protections for Arctic ringed seals in place and reject Alaska's effort to roll them back.

  • January 07, 2025

    Biden Designates Two New National Monuments In California

    President Joe Biden on Tuesday designated two sites in California as national monuments amid years of calls from Native American tribes and state and federal lawmakers, in turn protecting 848,000 acres from development.

  • January 07, 2025

    Canada Needs Catalysts To Heat Up Cold IPO Market

    Following another chilly year for initial public offerings in Canada, capital markets lawyers in the Great White North are approaching 2025 with caution, hoping that a few catalysts can break through and thaw an otherwise frozen market for public listings.

  • January 07, 2025

    Mont. Bill Floats Mine, Data Center Property Tax Changes

    Montana would lower the property tax rate imposed on metal mines, certain agricultural land and railroads but raise the rate on data center property as part of a bill introduced in the state Senate.

  • January 07, 2025

    Property Owner Says Insurer Owes $16.2M For Fire Damage

    A Colorado property owner is seeking to recover $16.2 million from its insurer for property damage caused by the 2021 Marshall Fire, telling a federal court the carrier wrongly concluded the properties did not sustain direct physical damage in order to justify replacement costs.

  • January 07, 2025

    Developer Says Mass. Stalling $15M Brownfields Tax Credit

    The developer of a 3.5-acre luxury condo and apartment complex in Boston's Seaport District is accusing the state of improperly second-guessing the work of its licensed environmental remediation consultant to deny a $15.3 million brownfields tax credit, then dragging its feet on an administrative appeal.

  • January 07, 2025

    DC Circ. OKs FERC's Approval For Indiana Pipeline

    A D.C. Circuit panel on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's approval of a 24-mile pipeline serving two new natural gas turbines in Indiana, ruling that an advocacy group wrongly suggested FERC could "second-guess" state regulators' choice of energy generation.

  • January 07, 2025

    Judge Looks To Finally Resolve Mass. 'Right To Repair' Suit

    A long-stalled fight over Massachusetts' expanded "right to repair" law requiring open access to vehicle telematics software appears to be on a fast track after a new judge took over the case and said Tuesday she plans to rule in the near future.

  • January 07, 2025

    No Problem With $217M Dam Repair Tax, Mich. Panel Says

    A Michigan appellate panel on Monday said a $217 million special assessment levied on property owners for dam repairs and lake level restoration after devastating 2020 floods was established through a legally sound process, ruling the owners were never entitled to have a pseudo-judicial review of the tax.

  • January 07, 2025

    Eckert Seamans Adds Former Trump Interior Dept. Atty

    Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC is the latest firm to get in on the exploding lateral movement in the energy legal market following the 2024 presidential election, adding a former Trump administration attorney who served in a first-of-its-kind role in the first administration's Interior Department.

  • January 07, 2025

    6 Firms Guide $5.6B PE-Backed Deal For GFL Unit

    Six law firms are guiding a deal disclosed Tuesday that will see funds managed by affiliates of Apollo and BC Partners purchase the environmental services business of GFL Environmental Inc. at an enterprise value of 8 billion Canadian dollars ($5.6 billion).

  • January 07, 2025

    CFTC Chair Behnam To Step Down When Trump Takes Office

    U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam announced Tuesday that he will resign his chairmanship on Inauguration Day in order to make way for new agency leadership under incoming President Donald Trump, who has yet to name Behnam's successor.

  • January 07, 2025

    Mintz Environmental Atty Joins Crowell & Moring In SF

    Crowell & Moring LLP is boosting its California environmental team, announcing Tuesday it is bringing in an environmental expert from Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC as a partner in its San Francisco office.

  • January 06, 2025

    Exxon Says Calif. AG, Green Groups Defamed Recycling Effort

    Exxon Mobil Corp. claims California's attorney general and a coalition of conservation groups have disparaged its reputation by declaring that the petrochemical company misled people about the effectiveness of plastic recycling and that its "advanced recycling" doesn't mitigate the problem, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Texas federal court.

  • January 06, 2025

    Nikola Investors Win Class Cert. In Securities Fraud Litigation

    An Arizona federal judge on Monday certified a class of investors accusing Nikola Corp. of inflating its stock price by exaggerating its ability to manufacture electric trucks, ruling that the shareholders have shown their case warrants the class treatment more than four years after they first sued.

  • January 06, 2025

    EPA Adds 9 PFAS To Its Toxics Release Inventory List

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency added nine so-called forever chemicals to the list of chemicals covered by its Toxics Release Inventory, or TRI, thereby requiring facilities that manufacture such chemicals above set quantities to report the amount they release into the environment.

  • January 06, 2025

    Edelson Must Share Info In Tort Case, Colo. Judge Says

    A Colorado state judge has ordered Edelson PC to provide information about advertising in a toxic tort case over ethylene oxide emissions from a medical sterilization facility in Lakewood, with a bellwether trial set for this month.

  • January 06, 2025

    New Rules Won't Lift Political Clouds Over Hydrogen Projects

    The Biden administration's new rules to make hydrogen production tax credits more accessible for project developers and investors may not move the needle much for the industry given President-elect Donald Trump's vow to at least partially repeal the statute that created the credits.

  • January 06, 2025

    Farm Owners, Rail Co. Spar Over Toxic Spill Trial Evidence

    Mississippi landowners fired back at a Canadian National Railway unit's attempt to block a train derailment report containing its admissions of fault from an upcoming trial in Mississippi federal court, saying the company's claims that the report is incomplete "ring hollow."

  • January 06, 2025

    Feds Hit Georgia Developer With Suit Over Native Artifacts

    The United States has accused a Georgia developer of violating its Clean Water Act permit by illegally filling in wetlands, so it could build residences on a floodplain even though it knew about the presence of protected archaeological sites and cultural objects on the property.

  • January 06, 2025

    Mich. Residents Say Solar Investors Can't Arbitrate Fraud Suit

    Michigan residents who allege Florida investment firms funded a company that duped them into buying defective solar panels have urged a federal judge to deny the firms' bid to arbitrate or dismiss the claims, saying the court has already rejected the investors' arguments.

  • January 06, 2025

    Biden Closes Off Coastal Areas To Offshore Drilling

    President Joe Biden on Monday announced a ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of U.S. waters on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in Alaska after determining that the environmental and economic risks and harms outweigh the benefits of drilling.

  • January 06, 2025

    Paul Hastings, Cravath Steer Pork Giant Smithfield's IPO Filing

    Pork producer Smithfield Foods Inc. on Monday submitted the year's first filing for an initial public offering, part of a spinoff from China's WH Group Ltd., represented by Paul Hastings LLP and underwriters' counsel Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP.

Expert Analysis

  • 'Greenhushing': Why Some Cos. Are Keeping Quiet On ESG

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    A wave of ESG-related litigation and regulations have led some companies to retreat altogether from any public statements about their ESG goals, a trend known as "greenhushing" that was at the center of a recent D.C. court decision involving Coca-Cola, say Gonzalo Mon and Katie Rogers at Kelley Drye.

  • 5 Credibility Lessons Trial Attys Can Learn From Harris' Run

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    In launching a late-stage campaign for president, Vice President Kamala Harris must seize upon fresh attention from voters to establish, or reestablish, credibility — a challenge that parallels and provides takeaways for trial attorneys, says Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies.

  • Missouri Injunction A Setback For State Anti-ESG Rules

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    A Missouri federal court’s recent order enjoining the state’s anti-ESG rules comes amid actions by state legislatures to revise or invalidate similar legislation imposing disclosure and consent requirements around environmental, social and governance investing, and could be a blueprint for future challenges, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

  • Nuclear Waste Storage Questions Justices May Soon Address

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    The petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas stands out for a number of reasons — including a deepening circuit split regarding the NRC's nuclear waste storage authority under the Atomic Energy Act, and broader administrative law implications, say attorneys at MoloLamken.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Conservation Rule Already Faces Challenges

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    The Bureau of Land Management's interpretation of land "use" in its Conservation and Landscape Health Rule is contrary to the agency's past practice and other Federal Land Policy and Management Act provisions, leaving the rule exposed in four legal challenges that may carry greater force in the wake of Loper Bright, say Stacey Bosshardt and Stephanie Regenold at Perkins Coie.

  • Opinion

    Big Oil Climate Ruling Sets Dangerous Liability Precedent

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    The recent Maryland court dismissal of Baltimore's case seeking to hold BP responsible for climate damage mischaracterized the city's injuries as divorced from the conduct that caused them, and could allow companies that conceal the dangers of their products to escape liability, says Randall Abate at George Washington University Law School.

  • Opinion

    3rd. Circ. Got It Right On Cancer Warning Claims Preemption

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    The Third Circuit's recent, eminently sensible ruling in a failure-to-warn case against Roundup manufacturer Monsanto, holding that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act preempts state law claims, provides a road map that other courts should adopt, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation.

  • How Methods Are Evolving In Textualist Interpretations

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    Textualists at the U.S. Supreme Court are increasingly considering new methods such as corpus linguistics and surveys to evaluate what a statute's text communicates to an ordinary reader, while lower courts even mull large language models like ChatGPT as supplements, says Kevin Tobia at Georgetown Law.

  • 5 Ways To Confront Courtroom Technology Challenges

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    Recent cybersecurity incidents highlight the vulnerabilities of our reliance on digital infrastructure, meaning attorneys must be prepared to navigate technological obstacles inside the courtroom, including those related to data security, presentation hardware, video playback and more, says Adam Bloomberg at IMS Legal Strategies.

  • ESA Ruling May Jeopardize Gulf Of Mexico Drilling Operations

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    A Maryland federal court's recent decision in Sierra Club v. National Marine Fisheries Service, vacating key Endangered Species Act analyses of oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, may create a gap in guidance that could expose operators to enforcement risk and even criminal liability, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • Why Attorneys Should Consider Community Leadership Roles

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    Volunteering and nonprofit board service are complementary to, but distinct from, traditional pro bono work, and taking on these community leadership roles can produce dividends for lawyers, their firms and the nonprofit causes they support, says Katie Beacham at Kilpatrick.

  • Firms Must Offer A Trifecta Of Services In Post-Chevron World

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision overturning Chevron deference, law firms will need to integrate litigation, lobbying and communications functions to keep up with the ramifications of the ruling and provide adequate counsel quickly, says Neil Hare at Dentons.

  • 5 Tips To Succeed In A Master Of Laws Program And Beyond

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    As lawyers and recent law school graduates begin their Master of Laws coursework across the country, they should keep a few pointers in mind to get the most out of their programs and kick-start successful careers in their practice areas, says Kelley Miller at Reed Smith.

  • Opinion

    Portland's Gross Receipts Tax Oversteps City's Authority

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    Recent measures by Portland, Oregon, that expand the voter-approved scope of the Clean Energy Surcharge on certain retail sales eviscerate the common meaning of the word "retail" and exceed the city's chartered authority to levy tax, say Nikki Dobay at Greenberg Traurig and Jeff Newgard at Peak Policy.

  • Series

    After Chevron: SEC Climate And ESG Rules Likely Doomed

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    Under the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Loper Bright, without agency deference, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure and environmental, social and governance rules would likely be found lacking in statutory support and vacated by the courts, says Justin Chretien at Carlton Fields.

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