Litigation
Fifth Circuit reverses Gulf of Mexico moratorium contempt ruling
You might remember that after the Deepwater Horizon blowout the Department of Interior issued a six-month moratorium on new deepwater exploratory drilling. An industry consortium challenged the moratorium, winning a preliminary injunction against its enforcement from District Judge Martin Feldman. (I criticized that decision here.) Interior withdrew that first moratorium but subsequently issued a second, …
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CONTINUE READINGLA River oral argument: the Justices debate how to tell the Ninth Circuit that it screwed up
I attended the oral argument on Tuesday in L.A. Flood Control District v. NRDC. (See Sean’s post for an in-depth background on the case, and Richard’s initial reactions to the oral argument). The Justices were actively engaged and appeared to have a strong grasp of the underlying facts about the District’s MS4. Much of the …
CONTINUE READINGToday’s Supreme Court Arguments in Los Angeles County Flood Control District
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals got no love from either the U.S. Supreme Court or the advocates appearing before it today in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel. Nor did a previously-unheard-from government actor similarly absent from the Supreme Court chambers today. Yesterday Sean Hecht posted on the …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Rules Federal Flooding of State Forest Lands an Unconstitutional Taking
Today was a busy day for the environment in the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only did the justices hear arguments in a potentially-important Clean Water Act case. (More on that in a future post.) The Court also issued its first decision among the five environmental cases pending before it this Term–three of which involve property …
CONTINUE READINGDeconstructing Today’s Supreme Court Arguments in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center
Legal Planet colleague Holly Doremus did an excellent job last week of previewing today’s U.S. Supreme Court arguments in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, a potentially important case involving the scope of USEPA’s point source permit jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. But given the results of those arguments and a major, late-breaking regulatory …
CONTINUE READINGThe strange saga of how Los Angeles County’s stormwater pollution ended up in the Supreme Court
Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council. This case involves a lawsuit by clean-water advocates to require our County Flood Control District to take responsibility for ensuring that polluted stormwater doesn’t impair our local water quality in two local rivers. The Ninth …
CONTINUE READINGWhat to expect in the logging roads case
Cross-posted at CPRBlog. This coming Monday, Dec. 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the logging roads case. The case involves two consolidated petitions, Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center and Georgia Pacific v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center , both challenging the same decision of the Ninth Circuit, Northwest Environmental Defense Center …
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CONTINUE READINGMore on BP’s guilty plea: it’s not just about the money
Cross-posted on CPRBlog. As already noted by Rick and Megan, last week BP pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts arising from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Megan provided a good basic overview of the terms of the agreement. Here is the plea agreement itself. The amount of money BP has …
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CONTINUE READINGBP Agrees to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges Arising Out of Deepwater Horizon Disaster
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that British Petroleum has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and precipitated the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. As part of the plea bargain, BP has agreed to pay the federal government $4.5 billion in penalties, including …
CONTINUE READINGWhy California’s cap-and-trade auction is not a tax
Yesterday, Ann and Cara gave their initial reactions to the California Chamber of Commerce lawsuit against California’s cap-and-trade auction. The main thrust of that lawsuit is that the auction (that happens today) is an unconstitutional tax because, according to the lawsuit, AB 32 gave the California Air Resources Board (CARB) no authority to withhold and …
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