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It is instructive to review the Supreme Court’s record in its most recent term, concentrating on regulatory and administrative law cases, which are usually back-burner issues. But not this term.

The Supreme Court began the current term on October 7, 2024. The Court has already chosen many cases to review in the new term, and it promises to be as interesting as the 2023 term, which produced several significant rulings affecting regulatory and administrative law, chiefly the Loper Bright Enterprises ruling. Loper Bright overturned the Court’s landmark administrative law ruling of Chevron, USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).

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Card-300x176In the latest episode of the Resilience podcast, colleague and host Shellka Arora-Cox sits down with Kevin Yaich, head of M&A at Qcells USA, for a discussion of the current solar M&A landscape.

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GettyImages-2145412338-300x200We all need water to survive—but access to the liquid lifeline isn’t always a given. With a shifting climate and ever-increasing agricultural and industrial demands on this limited commodity, UNICEF predicts that by 2025, half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity. On top of the obvious resource drains, many countries are losing surprising amounts of potable water to leaks. For example, in the United States alone, an estimated 6 billion gallons of treated drinking water seep out of its supply every day due to aging pipelines and undetected leaks.

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In our latest roundup, construction output decreased, office utilization unchanged, September apartment starts fell 15% from a year ago as developers pulled permits, and more!

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In our latest roundup, Hurricane Helene affects infrastructure, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs bills aimed at renter protections, Federal Reserve kick-off rate-easing cycle, and more!

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Blog-pic-300x191Colleague and host Shellka Arora-Cox recently sat down with Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO of EDP Renewables North America, to discuss the fascinating intersection of the energy transition and artificial intelligence.

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In our latest roundup, commercial mortgage bond market in trouble, commercial real estate investments, pressure on mortgage REITs, and more!

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GettyImages-1451308764-300x200Traditional and social media are thick with reports and predictions of the remarkable increase in size, power consumption and significance of data centers. Not only technology companies but real estate and energy developers, investment funds, lenders, and professionals of all stripes are in or determined to enter this sector. Our inboxes are full—it’s data center this, data center that.

But what exactly is a data center? What infrastructure, technology and human resources come together to create and sustain one of these localized points of computation? By understanding their components, we can glean some understanding of the business, public policy and (our focus) legal issues that arise before and during their operation.

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GettyImages-2012127464-300x200The threat of extreme wildfires has doubled in the past 20 years, with almost 20,000 fires blazing across the United States in 2024 alone. These high-intensity fires can be deadly, expensive, and create lingering health and environmental consequences. While we are used to seeing firefighters on the frontlines, researchers hope that next-generation smart technology, augmented by artificial intelligence (AI), will also play a key role in battling these conflagrations. Many municipalities, particularly those near wildfire-prone forests, are beginning to incorporate fire-focused advances (or “firetech”) into their smart city ecosystems.

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GettyImages-1416937322-e1725893825618-300x172Artificial intelligence, data centers, carbon removal and zero-emission power may sound like a winning line (plus the Free Space) on a 2024 Buzzword Bingo card. But the concepts have come into dramatic real-world tension as private and public actors seek to accommodate the digital and environmental imperatives for green energy.

After years of fairly stable demand, punctuated by declines during the pandemic and economic slumps, electricity demand is projected to double by 2050. A principal cause is the rapid expansion in the power needed to energize and cool servers amid explosive growth in the number and size of data centers, crypto miners, and other point sources of computation. Data centers were 3% of U.S. demand and are projected to be up to 9% or more by 2030; AI will drive a 160% surge in data center demand by 2030. A commentator notes, “We haven’t seen [growth like] this in a generation.” Continue Reading ›