On March 23, the Colorado Court of Appeals issued a ruling reversing the trial court and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission which had denied the petitioners’ request that the Commission, when promulgating rules affecting oil and gas production operations and activities in Colorado, be required to consider public…
In Potentially Costly Nuclear Rulemaking Proposed, NRC targets include oil & gas industry, cancer treatment providers, sterilization facilities and radiographers, Pillsbury attorney Jay Silberg discusses the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff’s recent recommendation that the NRC undertake a rulemaking requiring licensees to provide financial assurance (or set aside funds) to cover…
In Trump Jettisons Obama Climate Policies, President Trump signed a sweeping Executive Order initiating the rollback of the Clean Power Plan and requiring a broad regulatory review of energy and environmental regulation under a new “burden” standard, we discuss President Trump’s sweeping Executive Order initiating the rollback of the Clean Power…
UPDATE: U.S. Supreme Court asked to review feds’ prairie dog regulation On March 29, in the case of People For the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, et al., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a unanimous decision that the Endangered Species…
On March 22, in the case of Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al., v. FERC, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the plaintiffs’ complaint that the statutory requirement that the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) recover its annual operating costs directly from the entities it regulates results in…
On March 21, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of NLRB v. SW General, Inc., dba Southwest Ambulance. This case concerns the operation and application of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA). Section 3345(a) of the FVRA permits three categories of Government officials to perform acting service…
Two especially interesting decisions were released last Friday by the Texas Supreme Court. In Engelman Irrigation District v. Shields Brothers, Inc., the Court affirmed the ruling of the Thirteenth Court of Appeals (sitting in Corpus Christi) that a decades-old (circa 1998) final judgment against a government entity—the Engelman Irrigation District—could…
Below is a brief summary of the Office of Management and Budget’s recently issued “America First, A budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again.” The Blueprint only provides details on discretionary spending proposals. The full budget, to be released later this spring, will include specific tax proposals and a “full fiscal…
Yesterday, the White House published a Presidential Executive Order on a Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch directing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, after a period of review and consultation with the agencies, to propose a plan to streamline the federal government’s executive agencies, both reorganizing…
On March 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a ruling affirming the District Court’s rejection of Virginia common law property damage claims based largely on negligence, nuisance, trespass, and argument that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act , 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601 et seq.…