Today, my colleague Jay Silberg and I published our client alert discussing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) decision to consider revisions to applicable security and accountability regulations in response to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) sting operation which identified certain regulatory weaknesses. If adopted, these revisions could significantly affect the ability…
Something light for your Monday morning. On January 23, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma issued a ruling dismissing the plaintiff’s pro se complaint that the recycling practices of the Tulsa City-County Library Commission placed an “undue obstacle” on the plaintiff’s practice of “Environmentalism.” The case…
On January 11, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania decided the case of EQT Production Company v. Department of Environmental Protection of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and granted EQT Production Company’s (EQT) application for certain relief under the Declaratory Judgments Act, 42 PA. C.S. §§ 7531 et seq., with respect to the Department of…
On January 12, the Supreme Court of the State of Washington issued a unanimous ruling holding that both the Court of Appeals and the state’s Shorelines Hearing Board (Board) had erroneously interpreted the state’s Ocean Resources Management Act, Rev. Code of Wash. §§ 43.143.005 et seq. (ORMA), as having no application to…
On January 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the criminal conviction of Donald Blankenship, the former Chairman and CEO of Massey Energy Company (MEC), the operator of the Upper Big Branch Coal Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. In April 2010, an accident at this mine resulted in…
On January 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the lower court and held that EPA’s 2008 promulgation of the “Water Transfers Rule” (Rule) published in the Federal Register at 73 FR 33697 on June 13, 2008, was entitled to Chevron deference, and reinstated the rule. The regulation…
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new.” January 2017 has been a very active month, with several important environmental and federal administrative court rulings being issued, and many significant rules being proposed and finalized. Here’s a selection: NPDES Permit Ruling. On January 9, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District…
Today, our colleague Kevin Ashe posted his client alert on the California Environmental Protection Agency’s and Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s recent release of an “Update to the California Communities Environmental Health Screening Tool,” better known as CalEnviroScreen Version 3.0. CalEnviroScreen is a software tool used to identify and…
Last summer, in the waning stages of the Supreme Court’s 2015-2016 term, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s use of Chevron deference to overrule a district court which had decided that neither the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nor the…
OSHA has just published a Final Rule restating its interpretation of the “continuing violations” theory. There are now two Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that disagree with this interpretation: AKM LLC dba Volks Contractors v. Secretary of Labor, et al. (Volks) and Delek Refining, Limited v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission,…