February 2025

Seyfarth Synopsis: On February 11, 2025, President Trump nominated David Keeling as Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, pending Senate confirmation. Keeling, with extensive experience in occupational safety, is expected to adopt a pro-employer stance, contrasting with the Biden Administration’s approach. Anticipated changes include a delay or termination of new regulations on heat illness and

The exploding demand for energy to power hyperscaler data centers is leading to consideration of co-locating new generation (nuclear or otherwise) and data centers.  As we explained in Part 1 of this blog, co-location is attractive to hyperscalers because of its potential to provide those data centers with contractually committed energy supplies, delivered over

Pipelines: Mountain Valley Pipeline Requests Approval to Build Southgate Extension ⚡
On February 3, 2025, Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC (MVP) submitted an abbreviated application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regarding its Southgate Extension, which will run from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, to Rockingham County, North Carolina. MVP requests that FERC issue an order amending the

Effective February 3, 2025, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) adopted amendments to the Ground Water Quality Standards (GWQS), N.J.A.C. 7:9C. The amendments updated the groundwater quality criteria and/or practical quantitation levels (PQLs) for 73 constituents, the vast majority of which became more stringent. For example, groundwater quality standards for tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and

A federal appeals court has granted the Environmental Protection Agency’s request for a 60-day abeyance in litigation challenging the Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) for six PFAS chemicals.

In a February 7, 2025, decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily halted a lawsuit brought by the American Water Works Association and others.

President Trump hit the ground running, issuing more executive orders, memoranda, and other actions on Inauguration Day than any previous president. Agencies are already working to implement those actions. Many of the actions are interrelated, so Troutman Pepper Locke’s Environmental + Natural Resources team has put together the following resource to help assess the impact

The Brazilian National Council of Justice (CNJ) has recently issued Recommendation No. 156/2024, advising all branches of the Brazilian Judiciary and judges to adopt the second scope of the CNJ’s Protocol for Judging Environmental Lawsuits (Protocol). This second scope provides guidelines for quantifying the impact of environmental damages on climate change. In 2023, the CNJ