The Chesapeake Legal Alliance recently won a notable victory for the Assateague Coastal Trust in a successful challenge to the Maryland Department of Environmental Protection’s issuance of a state NPDES general permit for...more
Arguably, the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is one of our society’s most important numbers. The SCC is used in all climate decisions and will now be considered in all significant governmental decisions and federal actions. How...more
At ACOEL’s 2019 annual meeting in Williamsburg I chaired a panel on the ongoing restoration of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which I described as the biggest, and arguably the best, example of cooperative federalism in the...more
If your company is planning to buy commercial or industrial real estate, it’s probably your standard practice to have a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (“Phase I”) performed. When you do so, it’s important to ensure the...more
U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Whether Jurisdictional Determinations May be Appealed - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determines the presence or absence of wetlands and other “waters of the United States” on a...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to consider an appeal challenging EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Total Daily Maximum Load (TMDL), thereby bringing to an end the contentious years-long litigation over its legality. The Court’s...more
Clean Water Rule Opens Litigation Floodgates - With much fanfare, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) recently issued a final rule clarifying which bodies of water are “waters of the United States” protected...more
On July 6, 2015, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously rejected a challenge brought by agricultural and builder groups to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay...more
On July 6, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling in the case of American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA (No. 13-4079). The ruling, which affirmed an earlier district decision upholding the U.S....more