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Maryland lawmakers have overridden the governor’s veto to enact legislation directing a statewide assessment of climate-related costs, while New Jersey lawmakers are preparing a January committee hearing for the State’s pending Climate Superfund Act. Together, these actions underscore continued state-level interest in both study-based and liability-focused climate-cost attribution frameworks, even as four separate lawsuits challenging state climate superfund statutes in New York and Vermont proceed in federal court.

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On December 9, 2025, the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) issued proposed regulations and a staff report for California’s comprehensive climate disclosure laws, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) and the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261). These proposed regulations come less than a month after the Ninth Circuit issued an injunction temporarily halting enforcement of SB 261, at least until a January 9, 2026, hearing on the plaintiffs’ requested longer-term injunction through the remainder of the First Amendment challenge to the laws. The draft regulations would adopt some, but not all, of the provisions proposed by CARB in its public workshops on the laws to date, and notably would scale back applicability to those companies above a threshold level of sales in the state. The proposed regulations also define key terms, establish the program fee structures, explain fee enforcement and set initial reporting timelines. The written comment period begins on December 26, 2025, and ends on February 9, 2026. CARB will hold a public hearing on the proposed regulations on February 26, 2026 at 9 a.m. PST.

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On October 10, 2025, Governor Newsom signed SB 440, titled the Private Works Change Order Fair Payment Act. The new law introduces a process and deadlines for handling change order, time extension and payment disputes on private-works construction projects. SB 440 will apply to contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2026, and will remain in effect until January 1, 2030.

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In an effort to more effectively keep pace with and reduce the burdens on the rapidly evolving and expanding commercial space sector, the FCC has unanimously adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing a comprehensive restructuring and reform of its long-standing space and earth station licensing rules. With its breadth of scope and potential impacts across the space ecosystem, the NPRM also highlights the key role the Commission will play in advancing the Trump administration’s broader objective of enhancing American greatness in space and facilitating U.S. leadership and innovation.

In “Permissionless Innovation: The FCC’s Conceptual Shift for Space and Earth Station Licensing in the United States,” colleagues Jodi A. Goldberg and Betsy Craig explore how the NPRM is a public reminder that, through its statutory mandate to regulate the radiofrequency spectrum in the public interest, the FCC’s licensing authority over space operations has long extended beyond traditional communication satellites and their associated earth stations.

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For decades, the phrase “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) has dictated whether a wetland, stream, or pond falls within federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Two years and a change in administration later, EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have returned with a new proposal aimed at aligning the rulebook with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA and restoring a degree of predictability to one of the most litigated terms in environmental law.

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On November 18, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an injunction temporarily halting the implementation of California’s SB 261, the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, just weeks before the law’s first mandated disclosures on January 1, 2026. The court declined to stay California’s companion climate emissions disclosure bill, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253), due to that bill’s less immediately pressing compliance deadline of August 2026.

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On November 12, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Texas’s request for primacy over Class VI underground injection control (UIC) wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act, authorizing the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) to issue and oversee permits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) injection projects. The final rule makes Texas the sixth state to secure primacy over Class VI wells—following North Dakota, Wyoming, Louisiana, Arizona and West Virginia—and marks EPA’s third such approval in the last several months.

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In our latest roundup, turnover rate for US homes drops to a 30-year low, global data center real estate funding struggles to keep pace, industrial real estate space surges, and more!

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In our latest roundup, government shutdown affects contractors, hotel construction stays flat, and more!

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In our latest roundup, lab space real estate faces challenges, demand for data creates power brokers, the cost burden of sports stadiums, and more!

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