On January 22, 2014, the European Commission published its Communication and Recommendation on Shale Gas. The documents finally published are essentially the same as the draft versions that we reported in our blog post of January 17, 2014 and only introduce minor changes.
Among other things, the Recommendation now confirms that it “neither implies that…
Robinson Twp. v. Commonwealth, No. 63 MAP 2012 (Pa. Dec. 19, 2013), upended a lot of what we thought we knew about the Environmental Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution, Pa. Const. art. I, § 27. My January column in the Pennsylvania Law Weekly / Legal Intelligencer addresses that aspect of the decision, one that…
In Parker Shattuck Neighbors, et al. v. Berkeley City Council, et. al. (First Appellate District, December 30, 2013) (“Shattuck Neighbors”), the court upheld the City of Berkeley’s approval of a mitigated negative declaration (“MND”) for a residential infill project. The court found no Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) was necessary because the expert opinion…
In its most recent decision regarding Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) coverage, namely New Orleans Depot Services, Inc. v. Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, 718 F.3d 384 (5th Cir. 2013) (en banc), the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals defined “adjoining” as used in the LHWCA to mean “bordering on or contiguous with navigable waters.” In doing so, the Court expressly overruled its own precedent found in Texports Stevedore Co. v. Winchester, 632 F.2d 504 (5th Cir. 1980) (en banc), and the Court adopted the interpretation of the statutory language proffered by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Sidwell v. Express Container Services, Inc., 71 F.3d 1134 (4th Cir. 1995).
The EU Food Information for Consumers Regulation will apply in the UK from 13 December 2014. The Regulation will mean a number of significant changes for the labelling of pre-packed food.
A recent client alert by Squire Sanders lawyers Rob Elvin and Nicola Smith identifies important changes for business operators.
On November 19, EPA issued a discussion draft of its fiscal year 2014-18 strategic plan. This draft is notable for an explicit statement that EPA intends to reduce very significantly the resources it devotes to enforcement. That is good and bad for regulated entities. On the negative side, private NGOs may fill the void…
Tuesday 1 October 2013 saw the biggest change to employers’ liability in the United Kingdom for over twenty years when s.69 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act (ʺERRAʺ) 2013 came into force.
In the 2011 “Reclaiming health and safety for all” report published by Professor Löfstedt, the Government was urged…
If you know contaminated industrial property would be worth $X clean, what is the proper way to value the contamination? Maybe it is just the “cost to cure,” but that does not capture any “stigma” that may stay with the property. And then there is a wrinkle if the property is the subject of an agreement…
In June, we wrote about the Obama Administration increasing the Social Cost of Carbon. Predictably, people were unhappy about being informed of the increase through a regulatory impact analysis that dealt with energy efficiency standards for microwave ovens. The lackluster reveal attracted so much attention that the Obama Administration recently announced that it will provide…
The Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) has issued a report criticizing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (“CMS”) and its Recovery Audit Contractor (“RAC”) Program. In a report issued on September 4, 2013, the OIG determined that CMS need to take corrective action on…
