On January 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit dismissed an appeal of a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia that denied a preliminary injunction that would have enjoined the enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) and the U.S. Army…
Pursuant to the provisions of Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, as amended, the Office of the Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, in her “sole discretion” has waived in their entirety the following laws (including all federal state, or other laws, regulations and…
Today, our colleagues Michael Rizzo, Glenn Sweat and John Jensen published their Alert titled The 2018 Government Shutdown – How Can Contractors Preserve Rights? Takeways from the Alert include: Communicate with your Contracting Officers early and often regarding approvals and responses to inquiries. Analyze current contracts. Assess contract funding levels,…
Today, my colleague Anthony Cavender and I published our Alert titled Congress Expands the Oil Pollution Act to Reach Spills Originating Outside of the U.S. In it we discuss the Foreign Spill Protection Act of 2017 and key takeaways from this new law: New law establishes oil spill liability in the…
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its intention to hear a hotly-contested Endangered Species Act (ESA) case involving the “dusky gopher frog.” This frog’scritical habitat was determined by the lower courts to include areas in Louisiana although the species allegedly has not been seen there for many years. The Court’s…
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in National Assoc. of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense, et al. (the WOTUS case). The Court held that the plain language of the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires that appeals of such Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules as the redefinition of…
On December 22, 2017, the Office of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior issued a Memorandum re: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act Does Not Prohibit Incidental Take, which substantially modifies the Department’s policy regarding the criminal enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act’s (MBTA) prohibition against the incidental…
On December 18, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit employed recent U.S. Supreme Court Administrative Procedure Act (APA) rulings to decide whether the fans of the “Insane Clown Posse” group known as Juggalos could maintain an APA lawsuit against the federal government’s listing of the fans…
On December 18, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals or the Second Circuit decided the case of Secretary of Labor v. Cranesville Aggregate Companies, Inc., dba Scotia Bag Plant. In this case, the Secretary of Labor sought review of an Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) decision that vacated a number of Occupational…
On December 22, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a unanimous opinion upholding most of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) 2016 revised workplace standard for respirable crystalline silica, 29 C.F.R § 1910.1053(a)(1). The case is North America’s Building Trades Unions v. OSHA. The new rule…