Proof in Trial: Appellate Edition: Stand Up for California et al. v. U.S. Department of the Interior et al.
On July 3, 2025, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Army Corps”), and the Departments of Energy (“DOE”), Interior (“DOI”), Transportation (“DOT”),...more
In the past two weeks, six federal permitting agencies — the U.S. Departments of Interior (USDOI), Agriculture (USDA), Energy (DOE), Commerce (DoC), Defense (DoD), and Transportation (USDOT) — withdrew most of their National...more
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced on May 30 that it will invoke emergency permitting procedures to accelerate environmental review of select geothermal energy projects, with three proposed geothermal...more
Key Takeaways - -The Department of the Interior approved the reactivation of the Velvet-Wood uranium and vanadium mine using new emergency procedures issued pursuant to President Trump’s Executive Order 14156, which declared...more
In a significant policy shift, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) policy update designed to expedite the oil and gas leasing process on public lands. Through a newly issued...more
On April 23, 2025, the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) announced newly adopted emergency permitting procedures it is implementing to accelerate the review and approval of projects in relation “to the identification,...more
In a significant move to accelerate domestic energy development, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced emergency permitting procedures that will dramatically compress environmental review timelines. Under...more
On April 9, 2025, President Trump announced a slew of executive actions seeking to bolster the coal industry. One of the three executive orders is directly targeted at procedures to increase coal mining and production, which...more
Date Issued: Jan. 20, 2025 This executive order temporarily halts all offshore wind energy leasing within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS). It aims to address concerns related to marine life, ocean currents, wind...more
After little more than a week in office, there is still plenty of speculation, but priorities of the Trump 2.0 Administration are becoming more concrete. Issuance of three energy-focused Executive Orders (Unleashing American...more
On President Trump’s first and second days in office, the new administration released a flurry of executive actions, in the form of both memorandums and executive orders, focused on the energy industry:...more
Among President Donald Trump’s directives issued on his first day in office was a Presidential Memorandum targeting wind energy, which has been a significant source of new electricity generation in the United States over the...more
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has recently introduced a significant policy shift aimed at streamlining the permitting process for mineral projects on public lands. With the launch of the new “pre-plan coordination”...more
On December 17, 2024, President Biden signed into law the bipartisan Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024 (Public Law No. 118-155) (the “Act”). The Act is a response to ongoing environmental...more
A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Earthworks v. U.S. Department of the Interior has important implications for mining companies operating on public lands. This ruling upholds the Bureau of...more
The permitting process has been identified by numerous commentators as a major cause of delays in the development of energy, infrastructure, and mining projects in the United States. ...more
Welcome to Dorsey’s Energy Law: Month in Review. We provide this update to our clients to identify significant developments in the previous month. ...more
This article is part of Womble Bond Dickinson’s Energy & Natural Resources thought leadership series titled Striking the Balance: Permitting Reforms for Mining and the Energy Transition. In this series, we’ll explore the...more
The United States Forest Service (“Forest Service”) recently announced plans to amend all its land management plans for National Forest System units, affecting 128 plans in total. The Forest Service did so in a scoping notice...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit considers personal jurisdiction in a trademark declaratory judgment action and assesses an agency’s decision to omit an environmental-impact statement in connection with a forest-fire-management...more
In a move that could have far-ranging implications for projects that require federal permits and rulemaking across the entire federal government, the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) published interim...more
On Friday, I posted about a decision invalidating BLM Resource Manage Plans for failure to comply with NEPA. My caption was “NEPA Is Still Going to Pose an Obstacle to Leasing Public Lands for Fossil Fuel Extraction.”...more
For more than a century, since Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564 (1908), the Supreme Court has recognized that when the United States establishes a Native reservation, it impliedly reserves sufficient water rights to...more
On December 10, 2021, the Biden Administration released the Fall 2021 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Unified Agenda), which is a semi-annual compilation of information concerning regulations and policy...more
We interrupt our usual scrutiny of the courts to focus (mostly) on the important developments in notices and rulemaking issued by and concerning federal regulatory agencies and departments in the past several weeks....more