Welcome to the S&W Environmental, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Law Blog. This blog is a resource for the regulated community to stay current on new developments impacting the environmental, natural resources and energy sectors. It provides timely updates on a broad range of federal, state and local environmental topics — including proposed legislation and government rulemakings — that impact regulated industries throughout the southwest and the nation as a whole.
by John Habib The United Nations Human Rights Council passed Resolution 48/13 in October 2021. The Resolution recognizes as a human right a person’s access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Non-governmental organizations are now pushing the United Nations General Assembly to formally adopt Resolution 48/13. The United States did not take part in […]
by Fred Breedlove Less than two weeks ago, we wrote that the Department of Interior proposed reducing Colorado River deliveries in 2022 by 480,000 acre-feet and that Assistant Secretary Trujillo had asked the Basin States for comments on this proposal. Wasting no time at all, the Basin States responded last week. In a letter dated […]
by Fred Breedlove In an April 8, 2022 letter to each of the seven Colorado River basin states, the Interior Department asked for comments by April 22 about its plan to reduce releases from Glen Canyon Dam to 7.0 million acre-feet (maf) this year, a reduction of 480,000 acre-feet. In the letter, Assistant Secretary for […]
by Patrick J. Paul On April 7, 2022, Alphabet’s Wing launched commercial drone delivery service in two suburban towns north of Dallas, Texas – Frisco and Little Elm – where Wing had been testing its service over the last year following experiments in Christiansburg, Virginia; Helsinki, Finland; and Canberra and Logan, Australia. Like Waymo, which […]
by Patrick J. Paul On Wednesday, April 6, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision stayed a Northern District of California Court decision that both remanded and vacated EPA Trump-era rules regarding water quality certification of projects under Clean Water Act Section 401. The California District Court in 2021 in In re Clean Water […]
by Kelly A. Daly Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) submitted its Fiscal Year 2023 Congressional Justification. This document, which is submitted annually, consolidates the Annual Performance Plan with the Performance Budget Request for the primary purpose of communicating the agency’s accomplishments in the prior fiscal year and establishing goals to pursue its mission […]
by Mitchell J. Klein In a memo to agency leadership sent earlier this month, EPA Administrator Michael Regan rescinded practices that were instituted by one of his Trump-era predecessors, Scott Pruitt, to eliminate what has been referred to by some as “sue and settle” tactics. While the settlement of lawsuits is, of course, a common […]
by Raymond S. Heyman Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the forefront the key role that energy policy plays in international relations. Many countries sympathetic to Ukraine, but not wanting to escalate the conflict by sending troops, have discussed or actually imposed economic sanctions on Russia. One obvious target area for sanctions is Russian […]
by Patrick J. Paul On February 16, 2022, Joby Aviation, a California-based company developing all-electric aircraft for commercial passenger service, reported that one of its prototype experimental unmanned aerial taxis crashed in flight in South Monterey County, California. Although no injuries were reported, damage to the aircraft itself was substantial. The Joby prototype was one […]
by Patrick J. Paul On February 16, 2022, less than a week after nine Phoenix police officers were injured in a fatal standoff in South Phoenix, the City Council by a 6-3 vote, approved more than $500,000 in expenditures on behalf of the Phoenix Police Department to purchase drones and to develop a program to […]
