The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal of a challenge to the Delaware River Basin Commission's ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the Delaware River Basin. Pennsylvania state senators, a state caucus, and several municipalities argued the Commission exceeded its authority under the Delaware Ri...
The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit concerning a 2019 Texas law that allows only owners of existing transmission lines in the state to build, own, or operate new lines that connect to existing lines. A company seeking to enter the state...
While the environmental justice movement has gained traction in the United States, the relationship between agri-food systems and environmental injustices in rural areas has yet to come into focus. This Article explores the relationship between U.S. agricultural exceptionalism and rural environmental justice through examining right-to-farm laws.
A district court denied a request by conservation groups to halt all construction on a transmission line project from Iowa to Wisconsin pending the transmission companies' appeal of a prior order enjoining construction of a section of the line across the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and...
The D.C. Circuit vacated a district court's grant of summary judgment to EPA in a challenge to the Agency's approval of a permitting program for coal ash disposal facilities in Oklahoma. Environmental groups challenged EPA’s approval on several grounds under RCRA and the APA, and the district cour...
The D.C. Circuit held, 2-1, that an agency must provide notice and an opportunity for public comment when withdrawing a rule that has been filed for public inspection but not yet published in the Federal Register. In January 2017, USDA announced it had finalized a rule designed to protect show horse...
In Rethinking Grid Governance for the Climate Change Era, Shelley Welton has incisively described the underexplored institutional role of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) in facilitating decarbonization. As an attorney who advocates within the RTO stakeholder process, and before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the federal courts, I see firsthand how the RTO processes for identifying and addressing emerging issues can succeed or be derailed, and the limitations in FERC’s ability to proactively set these processes and their outcomes straight.
This Article, adapted from Leo E. Strine Jr., Kirby M. Smith, and Reilly S. Steel, Caremark and ESG, Perfect Together: A Practical Approach to Implementing an Integrated, Efficient, and Effective Caremark and EESG, 106 Iowa L. Rev. 18853 (2021), and used with permission, proposes a way of thinking about "EESG" that promotes ethical, fair, and sustainable behavior without heaping additional work on already-stretched employees and directors.