http://www.law360.com/environmental Latest articles for: Environmental Copyright 2012 Portfolio Media, Inc. en-US Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:13:48 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/308005 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/308005 An Italian developer planning to build a 2-million-square-foot retail and housing development in a small town near Grand Canyon National Park sued the town Wednesday after residents resisted the plan by trying to put certain town rules relating to its plan to a vote.  Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:45:26 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307989 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307989 BP PLC, Halliburton Energy Services Inc. and Transocean Ltd. on Wednesday won bids to have several employee emails and messages excluded from the upcoming trial in the Louisiana multidistrict litigation over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307638 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307638 The federal Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday agreed to revisit its analysis of an oil development plan as part of a settlement with environmental groups that alleged the approved drilling would pollute the air and disrupt sage grouse breeding grounds. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:49:38 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307986 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307986 New York’s attorney general on Tuesday blasted AES Eastern Energy LP’s plan to sell $30 million of cap-and-trade emissions credits in bankruptcy, saying the sale will result in hefty penalties that far exceed the cash it could raise. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:34:56 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307889 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307889 Oil and gas companies that violate safety and environmental policies while drilling on federal lands are rarely punished — and when they are, the resulting fines are little more than pocket change to the companies, Democratic lawmakers said in a report released Wednesday. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:53:30 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307708 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307708 A congressional committee on Tuesday passed a bill requiring more government review of the ethanol-gasoline blend E15, which critics say the Obama administration is pushing without scientific support that the fuel is safe and has environmental benefits. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:13:43 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307401 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307401 The U.S. Government Accountability Office on Tuesday urged three federal agencies to better coordinate their efforts to cut diesel emissions, after finding that the government spent more than $1.4 billion on sometimes overlapping emissions-reduction programs. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:05:16 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/306465 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/306465 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality chief rejected criticism of the agency's new emissions regulations in a committee hearing Wednesday, saying recent coal power plant closures were a result of changes in the energy industry, not the regulations themselves. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:34:20 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307518 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307518 A Louisiana federal judge ruled Tuesday that a liability release bars actor Stephen Baldwin from suing fellow thespian Kevin Costner for securities fraud after Baldwin was cut from a $52 million oil cleanup venture with BP PLC. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:32:43 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307494 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307494 A Washington federal judge on Tuesday ordered the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission to provide an environmental group with documents demonstrating the source of the funds used to pay Jackson Lewis LLP, hired to litigate a dispute with the agency's former general counsel. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:26:31 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307490 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307490 A Louisiana federal judge on Tuesday shot down BP PLC's attempt to exclude evidence about its Gulf of Mexico oil spill settlements from the upcoming trial in the Deepwater Horizon multidistrict litigation. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:12:17 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307374 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307374 A former fisheries aide to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was sentenced Tuesday to five months in prison and ordered to pay $150,000 for violating federal wildlife laws by fishing in one area and then falsely reporting that he had caught the fish in another area. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:56:28 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307385 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307385 Dover Chemical Corp. agreed Tuesday to pay $1.4 million in civil penalties to resolve claims from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it illegally manufactured chemical substances at facilities in Ohio and Indiana. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:36:35 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/306989 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/306989 The U.S. government sued RG Steel Wheeling LLC in West Virginia federal court on Monday, alleging the steel manufacturer released high concentrations of particulates into the air and mishandled hazardous waste dozens of times over a four-year period. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:57:27 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307123 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307123 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Intel Corp. and Raytheon Co. on Monday asked a California federal court to approve a new cleanup agreement requiring the companies to work on preventing contaminants from migrating from groundwater into buildings on a Superfund site. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:50:57 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307137 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307137 The Natural Resources Defense Council on Monday launched a Freedom of Information Act suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in New York federal court, seeking to force the agency to hand over documents related to its decision to deregulate genetically modified plants that resist weed killers. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:50:27 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/303301 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/303301 A forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement powers and a pair of bills that would give Congress oversight of EPA rulemaking could force the agency to reinvent long-standing regulatory strategies in the near future, attorneys say. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:24:25 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/306626 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/306626 The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce voted Tuesday to approve a bill that would remove President Barack Obama’s authority over TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL pipeline and empower the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the project within 30 days. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:49:16 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307335 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307335 The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday ruled the U.S. Department of Energy had adequately assessed the environmental impact of a California nuclear weapons laboratory with a facility containing lethal viruses, after an environmental group claimed the DOE hadn't sufficiently accounted for potential terrorist attacks. Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:31:39 +0000 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307270 http://www.law360.com/environmental/articles/307270 A Dominion Resources Inc. unit has promised to shut down its 60-year-old Salem Harbor coal plant in Massachusetts to settle a Boston-based environmental group's $10.8 million suit accusing the energy company of repeatedly exceeding smokestack emissions limits, the Conservation Law Foundation announced Tuesday.