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…
Two recently issued decisions are important because they clarify how the formidably complex legal structure affecting a growing American business—the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) –will be interpreted by the one federal Court of Appeals that has singular expertise in interpreting such requirements. On June 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals…
A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is a reminder to important federal agencies that they must take care to adhere to the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) when they issue not only new rules, but also other regulatory documents as well, and…
A very interesting unclaimed property memorandum opinion was recently issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in Temple-Inland, Inc. v. Cook, et al. After the State of Delaware conducted an audit going back 22 years and assessed Temple-Inland a liability of $2,128,834.13, which was comprised of…
Today, my colleague Norman Carlin published an interesting piece discussing a pair of recent decision issued by the Fourth District Court of Appeal upholding a public-private partnership (P3) water project against two California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) challenges. The two decisions are Delaware Tetra Technologies, Inc. v. County of San Bernardino, 247 Cal. App.…