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Environmental

  • June 06, 2025

    6th Circ. Sends GM Emissions Fraud Claims Back To Michigan

    The Sixth Circuit on Friday partly revived drivers' claims alleging General Motors deceptively marketed Chevrolet Cruze vehicles as clean vehicles when they were actually outfitted with emissions-cheating software, punting a question of preemption back to Michigan federal court.

  • June 06, 2025

    LA Fire Victims Say AAA, USAA Left Many Unable To Rebuild

    California homeowners accused AAA and USAA of systematically undervaluing the replacement cost of their homes all while advertising adequate coverage and financial security, telling a state court that many cannot now afford to replace or rebuild their homes following the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year.

  • June 06, 2025

    Feds Want Comments On Altering ESA Conservation Rule

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday said it's considering altering a Biden-era rule intended to increase participation in voluntary conservation programs, and asked the public for input.

  • June 06, 2025

    NY Tribe Urges Supreme Court To Overturn Eel Fishing Ruling

    A Long Island tribe is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to undo a Second Circuit ruling that rejected its challenge to New York's regulations on eel fishing harvests, arguing that if the decision is held, it would set a precedent allowing district courts to give up their gatekeeping roles on expert testimony.

  • June 06, 2025

    Arizona Mining Co. Challenges $417M Ruling In Peru Dispute

    Peru breached its U.S. trade agreement by imposing $417 million in penalties and interest on the unpaid royalties of an Arizona-based mining company's local operator, the company said while asking international arbiters to partially annul an award that it claimed mistakenly ignored the issue.

  • June 06, 2025

    US Steel Says Consultant Data Protected By Privilege

    U.S. Steel is fighting subpoenas from neighbors suing the steelmaker over alleged nuisance emissions from its facilities outside Pittsburgh, claiming that recommendations, reports and data from two consultants in the wake of a 2018 fire were covered by various privileges and confidentiality agreements.

  • June 06, 2025

    Feds Tee Up Redo Of Vehicle Fuel Economy Standards

    The U.S. Department of Transportation said Friday that vehicle fuel economy standards issued by the Biden administration improperly factored electric vehicles into the calculus, resulting in overly stringent standards that the Trump administration will soon revise.

  • June 06, 2025

    4th Circ. Stays Ruling Restoring Frozen Federal Grant Funding

    A split Fourth Circuit panel has blocked a South Carolina federal judge's order directing the federal government to restore 32 congressionally funded grants that were frozen by the Trump administration, while casting doubt on nonprofits' and cities' legal challenge.

  • June 06, 2025

    Goldberg Segalla Adds Toxic Torts Expert In NY

    Civil litigation firm Goldberg Segalla LLP has added a trial lawyer who is an expert in complex asbestos litigation, product liability, personal injury and commercial litigation matters to its toxic torts and environmental law group in Garden City, New York.

  • June 06, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Winston, Stibbe, Weil, Goodwin

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Chart Industries Inc. and Flowserve Corp. merge, Aedifica NV and Cofinimmo NV unite, Sanofi buys Blueprint Medicines Corp., and Kimberly-Clark Corp. sells a majority stake in its international tissue business to Suzano.

  • June 05, 2025

    'Sparse' OPM Record On Mass Firings Backs Win, Unions Say

    A "sparse and self-serving" record provided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management still shows the agency unlawfully directed federal agencies to fire probationary employees en masse, so a California federal court can reach a final decision now and "unwind" those terminations, a coalition including unions and advocacy groups said Thursday.

  • June 05, 2025

    USDA Sued Over Ending 600 Grants Via Flawed Form Letters

    A group of environmental and food sustainability nonprofits hit the U.S. Department of Agriculture with a lawsuit in D.C. federal court Thursday, accusing the Trump administration of unconstitutionally exceeding its authority by abruptly rescinding nearly 600 grants via "minimally edited form letters" that had errors and lacked detailed explanations.

  • June 05, 2025

    Feds Slam 'Flawed' Critique Of Camp Lejeune Water Expert

    The U.S. Department of Justice pushed to keep its water quality expert in North Carolina federal court on Wednesday, saying that the Camp Lejeune toxic water plaintiffs' critique of him was "fundamentally flawed" and experts on both sides relied on some of the same science.

  • June 05, 2025

    SEC Beats Challenge To Stricter Shareholder Proposal Rule

    A Washington, D.C., federal judge Thursday upheld the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's rule that raises eligibility requirements for submitting shareholder proposals, disagreeing with investor advocacy groups that the requirements "severely impair" investors' input on corporate policies.

  • June 05, 2025

    States Push To Block Feds From Slashing EV Charging Funds

    Sixteen states have pressed a Washington federal judge to block the Trump administration from cutting off congressionally approved funding for electric-vehicle charging infrastructure projects, saying state budgets and procurement processes are being upended by the administration's unilateral actions.

  • June 05, 2025

    2 Firms Guide Vermillion In $120M Sale Of US Assets

    Vermilion Energy Inc., advised by Torys LLP and Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP, said Thursday it has struck a deal to sell its remaining U.S. assets for $120 million in cash, completing its exit from the country and continuing its broader plan to refocus on long-term, gas-weighted assets in Canada and Europe.

  • June 05, 2025

    Feds Invest Millions To Revitalize Former Coal Mine Sites

    The U.S. Department of the Interior is doling out $130 million to help states and tribes redevelop former coal mine sites.

  • June 05, 2025

    Ill. Judge Tosses Dredged Waste Suit After Feds Pull Site Plan

    An Illinois federal judge on Thursday dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit challenging a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to expand a disposal site that stores sediments dredged from Chicago waterways, citing the agency's withdrawal of its decision over the Lake Michigan shoreline facility.

  • June 05, 2025

    Honduras Decries Solar Plant Arbitration Seeking $160M

    Honduras has urged an international tribunal to dismiss arbitration claims two Guatemalan citizens lodged seeking roughly $160 million for broken agreements involving a solar plant, calling them "an abuse of the investor-state dispute settlement system."

  • June 05, 2025

    Judge Wants Details On Harm From Trump Wind Farm Pause

    A Massachusetts federal judge Thursday asked a coalition of states and a clean-energy advocacy group for more specifics about the harm they allegedly will be caused by the Trump administration's decision to pause wind farm permitting, and said he wanted to move forward with a trial "promptly."

  • June 05, 2025

    Calif. Assembly OKs Exemption For Returned Tribal Land

    California land that is transferred to a federally recognized Native American tribe would be exempt from state real estate transfer tax under a bill passed in the state Assembly. 

  • June 04, 2025

    Ex-Ga. Chemical Plant Owners Sued For Toxic Waste Dumping

    The owner of an abandoned northwest Georgia chemical plant filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against its former owner-operators alleging that they left hundreds of drums of toxic waste behind, resulting in its new owner facing federal prosecution and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up.

  • June 04, 2025

    Feds Say 'No Viable Path' Forward For Calif. High-Speed Rail

    The U.S. Department of Transportation said Wednesday that the California high-speed rail's overblown budget and ongoing mismanagement indicate that there's "no viable path" to completing the project on schedule, so the federal government is preparing to pull nearly $4 billion in funding.

  • June 04, 2025

    Judge Grills Kidde-Fenwal About Missing Info In Disclosures

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge Wednesday questioned why firefighting foam maker Kidde-Fenwal did not include in plan disclosures details about the recoveries its creditors can expect under its Chapter 11 proposal, as the debtor prepares to send its reorganization plan out for a vote.

  • June 04, 2025

    Trump Ordered To Explain Why Layoffs Don't Flout Injunction

    A California federal judge ordered the Trump administration Wednesday to explain why preparations for layoffs at the State Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development do not violate an injunction she issued last month, saying she needed more details about the agencies' plans to evaluate their compliance.

Expert Analysis

  • Fund Names Rule FAQs Leave Some Interpretative Uncertainty

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    Although recently released FAQs clarify many specific points of the 2023 expansion to the Investment Company Act's fund names rule, important questions remain about how U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff will interpret other key terms when the end-of-year compliance date arrives, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • How Design Thinking Can Help Lawyers Find Purpose In Work

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    Lawyers everywhere are feeling overwhelmed amid mass government layoffs, increasing political instability and a justice system stretched to its limits — but a design-thinking framework can help attorneys navigate this uncertainty and find meaning in their work, say law professors at the University of Michigan.

  • Tools For Witness Control That Go Beyond Leading Questions

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    Though leading questions can be efficient and effective for constraining a witness’s testimony, this strategy isn’t appropriate for every trial and pretrial scenario, so techniques like headlining and looping can be deployed during direct examination, depositions and even witness interviews, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

  • Opinion

    US Steel-Nippon Merger Should Not Have Been Blocked

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    The Biden administration's block of the U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel merger on national security grounds was unconstitutional overreach and needs to be overturned, with the harms remedied in federal court, says attorney Chuck Meyer. 

  • 10 Issues To Watch In Aerospace And Defense Contracting

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    This year, in addition to evergreen developments driven by national security priorities, disruptive new technologies and competition with rival powers, federal contractors will see significant disruptions driven by the new administration’s efforts to reduce government spending, regulation and the size of the federal workforce, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • Navigating The Trump Enviro Rollback And Its Consequences

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    The Trump administration's rapid push for environmental deregulation will lead to both opportunities and challenges, requiring companies to adopt strategic approaches to a complex, unpredictable legal environment in which federal rollbacks are countered by increased enforcement by states, and risks of citizen litigation may be heightened, say attorneys at Beveridge & Diamond.

  • Series

    Competitive Weightlifting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The parallels between the core principles required for competitive weightlifting and practicing law have helped me to excel in both endeavors, with each holding important lessons about discipline, dedication, drive and failure, says Damien Bielli at VF Law.

  • 8 Ways Cos. Can Prep For Termination Of Their Enviro Grants

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    The federal government appears to be reviewing energy- and infrastructure-related grants and potentially terminating grants inconsistent with the Trump administration's stated policy goals, and attorneys at DLA Piper provide eight steps that recipients of grants should consider taking in the interim.

  • Opinion

    Undoing An American Ideal Of Fairness

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    President Donald Trump’s orders attacking birthright citizenship, civil rights education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs threaten hard-won constitutional civil rights protections and decades of efforts to undo bias in the law — undermining what Chief Justice Earl Warren called "our American ideal of fairness," says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • How Trump EPA Could Fix Carbon Combustion Residuals Rule

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    The Trump administration is likely targeting the recently adopted carbon combustion residual rule, especially since it imposes very stringent, detailed and expedited requirements on coal power plants — but even if the rule is not vacated entirely, there are measures that could greatly reduce its regulatory burden, says Stephen Jones at Post & Schell.

  • Nippon Order Tests Gov't Control Over Foreign Investments

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    The U.S. government is primarily interested in restraining foreign transactions involving countries of concern, but former President Joe Biden’s January order blocking the merger of Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel shows that all foreign direct investments are under the federal government’s microscope, say attorneys at Blank Rome.

  • Opinion

    Inconsistent Injury-In-Fact Rules Hinder Federal Practice

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    A recent Third Circuit decision, contradicting a previous ruling about whether consumers of contaminated products have suffered an injury in fact, illustrates the deep confusion this U.S. Supreme Court standard creates among federal judges and practitioners, who deserve a simpler method of determining which cases have federal standing, says Eric Dwoskin at Dwoskin Wasdin.

  • How Trump Orders Roll Back Energy Efficiency Mandates

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    President Donald Trump's first-day executive orders — including a freeze on administrative rules, an order to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, and a directive to broaden consumers' appliance choices — have shifted federal policy on energy efficiency, and bring new considerations for companies engaging with the U.S. Department of Energy, say attorneys at HWG.

  • Expect Continued Antitrust Enforcement In Procurement

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    The scope of federal antitrust enforcement under the second Trump administration remains uncertain, but the Procurement Collusion Strike Force, which collaborates with federal and state agencies to enforce antitrust laws in the government procurement space, is likely to remain active — so contractors must stay vigilant, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

  • In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

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    Several recent rulings illustrate the challenges in-house counsel can face when attempting to preserve attorney-client privilege, but a few best practices can help safeguard communications and effectively assert the privilege in an increasingly scrutinized corporate environment, says Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics.

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