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Environmental
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May 20, 2013
Conrail Faces 2 New Suits Over NJ Derailment, Spill
The deluge of litigation against Consolidated Rail Corp. and others over a November train derailment and resulting vinyl chloride spill in Paulsboro, N.J., continued Friday, when more than 120 individuals, including six first responders, filed two separate suits in Pennsylvania state court.
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May 17, 2013
Texas Joins Other Gulf States, Hits BP With Deepwater Suit
Texas became the fifth state to take BP PLC to court over the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill, lodging an enforcement action against the company Friday demanding civil penalties and economic damages caused by the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico.
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May 17, 2013
Enviros Sue To Block Tenn. Mountaintop-Removal Projects
Environmental groups including the Sierra Club sued the U.S. Interior Department in Tennessee federal court on Thursday, claiming the agency approved two mountaintop-removal coal mining projects in the state without properly considering their impact on two protected species of fish.
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May 16, 2013
Calif. DOT Hit With Enviro Suit Over $26M Highway Expansion
A trio of conservation groups sued the California Department of Transportation in state court Tuesday, contending a $26 million highway-widening project was not given a proper environmental review and will threaten redwoods, salmon communities and more.
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May 16, 2013
EPA Dropped The Ball In Soot Pollution Oversight, Enviros Say
An environmental group upset over air pollution levels in Utah and Idaho filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of violating the Clean Air Act by allowing smoke, soot and other harmful emissions to go unchecked.
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May 15, 2013
Argentina Files WTO Complaint Over EU Biodiesel Rules
Argentina filed a formal complaint against the European Union with the World Trade Organization on Wednesday, challenging European rules for the importation and marketing of biodiesel.
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May 15, 2013
First Responders Sue Conrail In Pa. Over NJ Derailment
The first responders who initiated the emergency cleanup of a November train derailment and resulting vinyl chloride spill in Paulsboro, N.J., sued Consolidated Rail Corp. and two other railroad companies in Pennsylvania state court Monday over their exposure to hazardous chemicals from the incident.
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May 14, 2013
Power-One Investor Says $1B ABB Offer Is Too Low
Solar energy firm Power-One Inc. and its executives were hit with a shareholder class action Tuesday claiming that its proposed $1 billion sale to Swiss conglomerate ABB Ltd. undervalues Power-One with the renewable energy market set to explode over the next decade.
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May 10, 2013
Sierra Club Appeals Emission Plan For Pa. Coal Plant
A new emission-control plan imposed on a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant owned — which environmentalists say ranks among the nation’s dirtiest — fails to ensure the facility will meet federal air pollution limits, the Sierra Club claimed in an appeal before state regulators on Thursday.
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May 3, 2013
Developer Challenges Miami's Restrictions On Mining Property
A development company on Tuesday challenged Miami-Dade County's enforcement of a water protection ordinance that the company says has been used to unnecessarily restrict mining and other industrial operations on its property.
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May 3, 2013
Conrail Hit With New Suit Over NJ Train Derailment
Consolidated Rail Corp. was hit with a lawsuit Thursday in Pennsylvania court, the latest in a string of complaints seeking to find the company liable for damages stemming from a train derailment and chemical spill outside Philadelphia.
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May 3, 2013
Unions Sue To Stop Subsidized Brooklyn Mixed-Use Project
A group of construction unions on Wednesday sued to stop the city of New York and several private developers from proceeding with a 1.9 million-square-foot mixed-use project in downtown Brooklyn, claiming it is depressing area wages, displacing businesses and harming the local environment.
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May 2, 2013
EPA Sued Over Admin Records In Latest Private Email Inquiry
A conservative think tank on Thursday sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C., over its refusal to produce email records from a nonofficial address it claims an EPA Region 9 administrator used to conduct agency business.
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May 2, 2013
Enviros Wants EPA To Revamp Toxic Emissions Standards
Four environmental groups urged a Washington federal judge on Wednesday to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to review toxic emissions standards, claiming the agency has ignored inaccurate data for more than 30 years.
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May 1, 2013
FDA Ignores Toxic Arsenic In Animal Feed, Suit Says
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was hit Tuesday with a suit in California federal court that seeks to force the agency to respond to a three-year-old petition to ban certain arsenic-based drugs added to animal feed.
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April 30, 2013
BP Spill Plaintiffs May Struggle To Show Economic Losses
Thousands of municipalities, businesses and individuals have recently scrambled to sue BP PLC for alleged economic losses stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster ahead of a three-year statutory deadline, but experts say proving the oil giant caused those losses will be a legal hurdle many plaintiffs will find tough to clear.
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April 29, 2013
Enviro Group Challenges Wyo. Coal Leases
Conservation group Powder River Basin Resource Council sued the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming federal court Friday, alleging the agency approved four new coal leases without considering their environmental implications on the area or adjacent mines.
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April 29, 2013
GE Demands Millions For River Cleanup From Nat'l Grid Unit
General Electric Co. on Friday hit National Grid unit Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. with a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in response costs GE said it has incurred in connection with the environmental dredging of a Superfund site in the upper Hudson River in New York.
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April 26, 2013
Sierra Club Seeks ConocoPhillips' Arctic Drilling Docs
The Sierra Club and four other environmental groups sued two U.S. Department of the Interior agencies in Washington federal court Friday in hopes of accessing public records submitted by ConocoPhillips as part of oil and gas exploration efforts in Alaska's Chukchi Sea.
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April 26, 2013
Insurers Needn't Cover Old Lead Contamination, Court Told
National Fire Insurance of Hartford and Continental Casualty Co. asked a Wisconsin federal judge on Wednesday to block a sheet metal manufacturer's demands that they cover costs connected to decades-old lead and organic compound contamination, arguing that their policies exclude pollution claims.
Expert Analysis
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The Starstruck Medical Causation Trend
In the technical sense, medical causation answers whether an accused substance brought about some alleged disease. But rarely are the central causal allegations in major toxic torts purely courtroom affairs — publicity and politics now drive the litigation, with plaintiff verdicts begetting more publicity, says James Sabovich of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
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An Opportunity To Limit Prop 65 Abuse
The long-awaited proposed reforms to California's Proposition 65 are welcome and needed as they would greatly reduce the number of frivolous Prop. 65 lawsuits and alleviate the defense costs for manufacturers, says Mark Johnson of Alston & Bird LLP.
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Rise Of The Machines — Predictive Coding Goes Mainstream
The pros of using predictive coding far outweigh the cons. Given the heavy pressure on law firms and in-house counsel to reduce discovery costs, as well as the Justice Department's recent stance on the subject, it appears predictive coding will continue to emerge from the obscure world of legal technology to the mainstream of legal practice, say Michael Moscato and Myles Bartley of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.
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The Oil And Gas Operator's Texas Advantage
The interpretation by the Supreme Court of Texas in Reeder v. Wood County Energy LLC grants vast protection to oil and gas operators, but by doing so, it is perceived by some as muddling the differences between tort and contract law, says Michael Bolton and Kate Kalanick of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP.
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Know Your Risks Before Going Green In Construction
Although there are benefits to “going green” in the construction, development and operation of buildings, there are also risks unique to green building that will test the boundaries of coverage under typical liability insurance policies, say attorneys with Sedgwick LLP.
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4th Circ. Weighs In On Bona Fide Purchaser Defense
The Fourth Circuit recently issued a ruling in PCS Nitrogen Inc. v. Ashley II of Charleston that may limit the availability of the bona fide prospective purchaser defense. By narrowly construing one of the elements of the BFPP defense, the court has underscored the importance of strict compliance with all requirements of the defense, say attorneys with K&L Gates LLP.
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Get Ready For Stricter RMP Enforcement
The recent $4 million settlement by Tyson Foods Inc. represents one of the largest penalties for a stand-alone risk management program enforcement case since the provision was added to the Clean Air Act in 1990. This case also exemplifies the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s increasing focus on RMP compliance and its intention to seek ever-larger penalties for RMP violations, say attorneys with Kilpatrick Townsend Stockton LLP.
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Another Challenge To Calif. Cap-And-Trade Law
The California Air Resources Board has again been sued over its implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act in Morning Star Packing Co., et al. v. CARB, which resembles an earlier action brought by the California Chamber of Commerce. Petitioners of both cases face the difficult challenge of convincing the court to derail a massive regulatory scheme that is now well underway, say attorneys with Marten Law PLLC.
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The Who, What And Why Of Public-Private Partnerships
Public-private partnerships have been used in a wide range of sectors to provide public services, from power plants and railroads to hospitals and sanitation plants. Yet there are a variety of potential contractual arrangements and the financing of a PPP can be complex, say Maryam Khosharay and Herbert Glaser of Haynes and Boone LLP.
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Calif. Chemical Safety Rules Push Constitutional Envelope
Impatience with the pace of Toxic Substances Control Act reform at the federal level is understandable, but substituting individual state action for a perceived lack of federal action may be the classic example of a cure which is worse than the disease. Many think California’s Safer Consumer Product Regulations now prove that, says Ward Benshoof of Alston & Bird LLP.