Category: Newsletter

Squire Patton Boggs LLP
E. Nicki Hewell

May 10, 2019

The Keystone XL Pipeline is back in the spotlight. In the first quarter of 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction prohibiting TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, LP and TransCanada Corporation (TransCanada) from beginning construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline. On March 29th, President Donald Trump issued a new cross-border permit that threatens to bypass the pending litigation. Most recently, on April 8th, the United States and TransCanada filed motions to dismiss the Ninth Circuit appeal and remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss for mootness.

These filings represent the most recent steps in a decade-long fight over this controversial pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone XL Pipeline is the planned fourth phase of the Keystone Pipeline System, an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, which was commissioned in 2010. Phases 1-3 have already been completed and are online. The first phase went online in 2010, and the most recent phase (the Houston Lateral Pipeline) went online in 2017.

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Barnes & Thornburg LLP
Louise Dyble

April 11, 2019

The Seventh Circuit recently slapped down a decision dismissing a citizen suit for environmental contamination, throwing court doors wide open to private plaintiffs seeking injunctive relief under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

With its March 6, 2019, decision in Liebhart v. SPX Corporation, the Seventh Circuit joined eight other circuits in adopting a lenient interpretation of RCRA’s requirement that plaintiffs show “imminent and substantial endangerment to health” from contamination. The decision empowers federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin to issue orders “to eliminate the risks posed by toxic waste.”

The controversy started with the demolition of a former manufacturing facility located on the same block as three residential properties owned by William and Nancy Liebhart in Watertown, Wisconsin. Prior to 1971, the factory produced power transformers containing Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), a substance subsequently banned by the EPA. After the factory shut down completely in 2005, SPX commissioned a site study that revealed traces of PCBs throughout the building, most significantly in its concrete floors. Demolition commenced in 2015 under an EPA-approved “self-implementing cleanup plan.”

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Holland & Knight LLP
Dianne R. Phillips

April 12, 2019

On April 11, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order on Promoting Energy Infrastructure on Economic Growth which included provisions related to updating regulations linked to facilities which handle liquefied natural gas (LNG) and regulations associated to transporting LNG by rail. As described in prior blog posts, regulatory changes are needed before LNG can be transported by rail tanker cars under applicable Hazardous Materials and Carriage by Rail regulations, 49 C.F.R Parts 172, 173 and 174, absent a special permit. Although the Association of American Railroads (AAR) filed a petition for rulemaking with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) in January 2017 and PHMSA responded on May 7, 2018, there hasn’t been much movement on the subject. With this Executive Order, President Trump has ordered the Secretary of Transportation to “propose for notice and comment a rule, no later than 100 days after the date of this order, that would treat LNG the same as other cryogenic liquids and permit LNG to be transported in approved rail tank cars” and further “finalize such rulemaking no later than 13 months after the date of this order.” No surprise that sides are already forming about what some are calling “bomb trains” so we can expect a lot of interest in this particular rulemaking.

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Synergy Environmental, Inc.

 April 2, 2019

Waterloo Hydrogeologic has just received approval from the LSRP Board for 21 CEU Credits for their Class, Visual MODFLOW Flex. The course will be held at Synergy’s Royersford, PA Office from April 9 – 11, 2019.

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Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Gerald F. George

March 13, 2019

One of life’s eternal questions: where do all those golf balls go that are hit into a water hazard? If it was a pond, I knew the answer from my misspent youth – kids sneaking onto the premises at night fished them out of the ponds and sold them to other golfers. But what about Pebble Beach? Those balls went into the ocean!

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Lane Powell PC
Eric J. Kodesch and Michael A. Nesteroff

March 15, 2019

The Opportunity Zone tax incentives created by the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 seemed to be a perfect opportunity to spur development of environmentally impaired properties, known as brownfields, in economically distressed communities. But the IRS draft regulations currently under consideration do not appear to allow for inclusion of brownfields in the program. That could mean, for lack of a better description, a real lost opportunity for many communities since brownfields often are in the very areas that the Opportunity Zone program is intended to benefit.

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