BP Oil Spill
Standing, Settlement, and Mass Torts
BP is trying to use standing law to wiggle out of its own settlement agreement. The courts have been right to say no.
BP entered into a settlement in a massive class action against it arising out of the BP oil spill. Now it’s trying to get out of part of the settlement while keeping the rest of the deal in place. BP’s argument involves three areas of confusion in standing doctrine: how does it apply to class actions, …
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CONTINUE READINGNew Symposium on Disaster Law
The Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum has just published a great symposium on disaster law. The authors include some leading lights in environmental law, and for good reason, since disaster issues and environmental law are closely related. Here are links to all of the individual articles: Articles Introduction: Legal Scholarship, the Disaster Cycle, and …
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CONTINUE READINGPreviewing a VERY Big Week for Environmental Law in the Courts
UPDATE: The Associated Press reports that late Sunday, February 26th, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier announced a one-week postponement of the trial in the BP oil spill case that had been scheduled to begin the next day. The postponement is reportedly due to substantial progress that has been made in marathon settlement talks that …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Disasters and Regulatory Failures
There is a strong nexus between environmental disasters and regulatory failures. The connection is most obvious for the BP oil spill, where weak regulation contributed to a massive spill whose ecological consequences are not yet completely known. It’s also apparent in the reactor melt-down after the recent Japanese tsunami, which has resulted in radioactive releases. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe BP Oil Spill and the Disappearing Louisiana Coast
The fact is that even before the BP Oil Spill, the Gulf Coast and the Gulf of Mexico itself were under siege from damage to wetlands, a poorly regulated oil and gas industry, rising seas, an immense marine “dead zone,” invasive species, and damaged ecosystems.
CONTINUE READINGBP spill lawsuit complaint and link to early analysis
Here’s the complaint in the newly-filed lawsuit the United States filed against BP today, which I summarized earlier in this post. And NRDC’s David Pettit has written an interesting blog post with some initial thoughts about timing and choice of defendants in the lawsuit.
CONTINUE READINGU.S. sues BP, eight other defendants for violations of Oil Pollution Act in Deepwater Horizon blowout
Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, announced today that the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit alleging that BP, Transocean, and seven other firms caused or contributed to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill earlier this year. The lawsuit seeks response costs, natural resource damages, and economic damages under the …
CONTINUE READINGBP Deep Water Horizon Oil Commission Takes on All Sides
The Presidential BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission released two new reports yesterday, on the effort to stop the spill and anotheron whether response and clean up technology has kept pace with technology developments for exploration. The reports continue a really impressive pattern emerging from the Commission: taking on hard questions, devoting …
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CONTINUE READINGKing Canute Meets the BP Spill
King Canute famously ordered the waves to retreat from the shore. In a gesture of nearly equal futility, the State of Louisiana is building giant sand berms. Unlike King Canute’s gesture, however, Louisiana’s is not only futile but harmful. Also, Canute knew his gesture was pointless; his explanation was that he wanted to illustrate the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe BP Deepwater Horizon Blowout and the Social and Environmental Erosion of the Louisiana Coast
In a lecture that I gave last week at the University of Minnesota, I discussed how the Louisiana Coast was under grave threat from erosion, rising seas, and pollution even before the explosion on the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon platform. Whole communities have vanished under the rising water, and the livelihoods and communities of …
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