On July 7, the U.S. District Court for Alaska decided the case of Castle Mountain Coalition, et al., v. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, holding that a mining permit issued under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) is terminated by operation of law if the mining activities…
On July 8, the Illinois Supreme Court, in Hampton, et al., v. Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, held that temporary flooding of the plaintiffs’ residential properties located in the Chicago area can be the subject of a “taking” for which they may be entitled to just compensation under the…
Anyone doing international construction work knows that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) has been continually increasing its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) focus on U.S. companies doing business overseas. Here’s the latest: Recently my colleagues William Sullivan and Reza Zarghamee wrote an interesting piece, New SEC Payment Disclosure Rules…
The issue of the relentless growth and penetration of administrative law remains a compelling topic for those operating in heavily regulated industries like the construction industry. Chris DeMuth, a Fellow at the Hudson Institute, recently wrote Can the Administrative State be Tamed?, an interesting essay in which Demuth provides his perspective on…
On July 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility v. Hopper, Acting Director of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, reviewed the District Court’s dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that the Government’s approval of a Cape Cod offshore wind energy…
On July 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an important ruling interpreting the reach of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in the case of Competitive Enterprise Institute v. Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Office is located in the Executive…
My colleague Mark Elliott, in Open Wide: FOIA Reform Expands Public Access to U.S. Government Information, discusses the bipartisan Freedom of Information Improvement Act of 2016 (S. 337) signed into law by President Obama’s on June 30. The bill’s most notably requirement is that the government operate under a “presumption of…
This decision is reminiscent of a fairytale about a princess and her frog prince and the croaking chorus of the Frogs of Aristophane. On June 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a significant ruling involving critical habitat designations on private land. The case was decided…
Volume One of the U.S. Code Annotated publishes the Organic Laws of the United States of America, and this collection begins with the Declaration of Independence. On the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was agreed to, engrossed on paper, signed by John Hancock as president of the Continental…
Recent Department of Labor (DOL) rulemaking proceedings and compliance letters have been successfully challenged in the federal courts. These cases are important because the work of the DOL, in enforcing and interpreting the law, is of fundamental importance to both employers and employees and their counsel. A few days ago, the U.S. Court…