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On February 27, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and held that international organizations, such as the World Bank, while being protected by the International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945 (IOIA), are not absolutely immune from lawsuits filed in federal court because the protections afforded by the IOIA are tempered by the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The case is Jam, et al. v. International Finance Corp.

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On March 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided National Parks Conservation Assoc. v. Todd T. Simonite, Lieutenant General, et al. The case involves an application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) for a construction permit to build electric power lines over the “historic James River, from whose waters Captain John Smith explored the New World.”

The Corps concluded after reviewing the thousands of comments submitted to it in connection with this application, and after considering the views of several government agencies and conservation groups, that an Environment Impact Statement (EIS) was not required, and that its Environmental Assessment assured the Corps that the project would not result is significant environmental impacts. The Court of Appeals has concluded that, based on this evidence, the Corps’ refusal to prepare an EIS thoroughly discussing all these points was arbitrary and capricious. The Corps has been ordered to prepare the EIS and to take special note of its obligations under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the Clean Water Act (CWA) and its obligations under the National Historic Preservation Act.

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On February 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. City of Roanoke, et al.; the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was an Intervenor-Defendant. The Fourth Circuit held that a large stormwater management fee (stated to be $417,000.00 for the year 2017) levied by the City of Roanoke against the railroad to assist in the financing of the City’s permitted municipal stormwater management system was a permissible fee and not a discriminatory tax placed on the railroad.

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Prior to deciding whether to review an important February 1, 2018, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision involving the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act (CWA), Hawai’i Wildlife Fund, et al., v. County of Maui, the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General for the views of the U.S. on the holdings of this case and the April 12, 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision, Upstate Forever, et al., v. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P., et al.

On February 19, the Supreme Court confirmed that certiorari was granted to Question 1 presented by the Petition,

Whether the CWA requires a permit when pollutants originate from a point source but are conveyed to navigable waters by a nonpoint source, such as groundwater. (33 U.S.C. § 1362 (12)

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On February 14, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the complaint of the National American Butterfly Association (NABA) alleging that the U.S. Government’s border wall preparation and law enforcement activities at NABA’s National Butterfly Center, located in South Texas along the Rio Grande River, violated federal environmental laws (National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA)) as well as NABA’s constitutional rights. The case is National American Butterfly Association v. Nielsen, et al.

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Most companies have been involved in a situation where they want to end their relationship with another company, or with an employee, and to permanently terminate their mutual obligations (e.g., a settlement agreement resolving end-of-project litigation). In 1992, a California Court of Appeals, in Winet v. Price, confirmed that upholding general releases is “in harmony… with a beneficial principle of contract law: that general releases can be so constructed as to be completely enforceable.”

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Today, our colleagues David Dixon, Meghan Doherty and Toghrul Shukurlu published their Client Alert titled FAR’s Professional Compensation Clause and Keeping Things Real. The Alert discusses the U.S. Court of Federal Claims’ recent decision in Sparksoft Corp. v. U.S., an action involving Sparksoft Corp.’s protest of a pre-award decision of the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (DHS) not conduct a realism analysis on the professional compensation rates embedded within the firm-fixed-price (FFP) component of bids submitted under the solicitation.

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Yesterday, our colleagues Travis Mullaney and Meghan Doherty published their Client Alert titled Government Contract Acquisitions and the Pending Proposal Problem. Their Alert discusses the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) decision in Wyle Laboratories, Inc., a decision raising significant questions as to the viability of proposals that are submitted before or during, and remain pending after, a government contract acquisition.

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On February 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s decision to grant a motion for summary judgment disposing of a complaint that the decision of the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) to expedite construction of border barriers in the San Diego and Calexico, CA border crossing areas was inconsistent with the Secretary’s powers under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), as well as  the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other authorities. The case is In Re Border Infrastructure Environmental Litigation (Center for Biological Diversity, et al., v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, et al.).

“As a threshold matter, we have jurisdiction to consider the ‘predicate legal question’ of whether IIRIRA authorizes the contested projects. Because the projects are statutorily authorized and DHS has waived the environmental laws California and the environmental groups seek to enforce, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to DHS.”

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On February 8, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued its latest ruling in a case which challenges the President’s January 30, 2017 Executive Order constraining the ability of federal agencies to issue new regulations and the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) implementation of that Order. The case is Public Citizen, Inc., et al. v. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. The District Court has not yet been convinced that the petitioning plaintiffs have standing to make this challenge to this Order, and its mandate that two existing rules be eliminated for each new rule promulgated.

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