The Council on Environmental Quality has proposed amendments to its 2020 NEPA implementing regulations, adopted during the waning days of the Trump administration. The Proposed Rule, published in the October 7, 2021 Federal...more
The Federal Permit Improvement Steering Council on November 27, 2020, proposed to add mining to the list of infrastructure sectors that are covered by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41). 85...more
The U.S. Forest Service has released narrowly tailored changes to update its procedures under the National Environmental Policy Act, in the wake of the Council on Environmental Quality’s recent overhaul of the NEPA...more
Uncertainty has long reigned over the reach of the federal Clean Water Act, which applies to “navigable waters,” defined by statute only as “waters of the United States.” Over the last several decades of debate about federal...more
5/1/2020
/ Appeals ,
Clean Water Act ,
Direct Discharge ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Functional Equivalent ,
Groundwater ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Navigable Waters ,
NPDES ,
Permits ,
Point Sources ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Vacated ,
Waters of the United States
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted amendments to modernize the rules relating to property disclosure requirements for mining registrants, and Industry Guide 7 (Guide 7), under the Securities Act of 1933,...more
The $1.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which was signed into law on March 23, 2018, (the Act) includes bipartisan measures to fundamentally change how the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies pay...more
4/9/2018
/ Amended Legislation ,
Disaster Aid ,
Endangered Species Act (ESA) ,
Federal Budget ,
Federal Funding ,
Forest Service ,
Natural Disasters ,
NEPA ,
New Legislation ,
Trump Administration ,
Utilities Sector ,
Wildfires
Significant antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVDs) on imports of softwood lumber from Canada will continue following the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) final affirmative injury determination made...more
President Donald Trump’s recently signed Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth (the Order) includes significant revisions to the regulatory landscape both (1) directly in the case of oil and...more
4/14/2017
/ Air Quality Standards ,
Bureau of Land Management ,
Carbon Emissions ,
Clean Power Plan ,
Clean Water Act ,
Coal Industry ,
Coal Mines ,
Coal-Fired Generation ,
Department of the Interior ,
Energy Sector ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Land ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Fracking ,
Natural Gas ,
Obama Administration ,
Oil & Gas ,
Regulatory Burden ,
Renewable Energy ,
Rollbacks ,
Shale Gas ,
State and Local Government ,
Trump Administration
Following a recent breakdown of bilateral negotiations, a group of U.S. companies calling itself COALITION (Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade or Negotiations) filed antidumping (AD) and countervailing...more
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a decision on July 5, 2016, that declined to regulate discharges from forest roads for regulation under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act. As such, it remains the case that...more
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on May 31, 2016 that an approved jurisdictional determination issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act is a final agency action subject to judicial review. Hawkes Co.,...more
6/2/2016
/ Administrative Appeals ,
Administrative Procedure Act ,
Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hawkes Co v United States Army Corps of Engineers ,
Judicial Review ,
Jurisdictional Determination (JD) ,
Land Developers ,
Permits ,
Property Owners ,
SCOTUS ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published draft revisions on March 8, 2016 to its 1981 Mitigation Policy for mitigating the impacts of development projects to natural resources. See Proposed Revisions to the U.S....more
President Barack Obama recently ordered the heads of five federal agencies (U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic...more
On February 7, 2014, President Obama signed into law the 2014 Farm Bill, H.R. 2642. Section 12313 of the Bill (Silvicultural Activities) amends the Clean Water Act to make clear that a National Pollutant Discharge...more
2/12/2014
The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a 2010 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision and reaffirmed that a federal Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) point source discharge permit is not...more