Yesterday, our colleagues James Gallagher and Glenn Sweatt published their client alert discussing a recent and important decision issued by the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA) in Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Inc., ASBCA Nos. 59508 and 59509. The decision exposes what has been in recent years an all-too-familiar practice by the Defense…
“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…
Recently, our colleagues Emily Erlingsson, Kathy Donovan and Anita Mayo posted their client alert discussing the amendments made by the Office of Government Ethics to the executive branch gift rules. These changes included clarifications to existing gift exceptions that are commonly used by corporations and organizations whose employees interact with federal…
Recently, our colleagues Michael Reese and Andrew Home posted their client alert discussing the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act. This legislation creates new obligations as well as new opportunities for infrastructure constructors, owners/operators of public water systems and their lenders. This new legislation and related appropriations may pave the…
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,…
On January 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a ruling reversing the district court’s decision that Asarco could not proceed with its claims for cost recovery at a Utah Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) mining site. The case is Asarco, LLC v. Noranda…
Recently Law360 published my three-part series covering 2016’s most significant environmental cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts. Part 1 covers the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts sitting in the D.C., First, Second, Third and Fourth Circuits. Part 2 highlighted cases decided by the federal courts sitting in…
On December 22, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued an opinion in Water Quality Insurance Syndicate v. U.S., which reversed the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center’s (NPFC) finding of gross negligence by the captain of the MONARCH, a supply vessel that collided with an offshore oil…