“The noise in the sustainability space has gradually grown louder over the past few years, most often via forward-looking aspiration: bold commitments, proclamations of renewed corporate purpose, even a (nominal) redefinition of the corporation’s role in society,” reports Grant Harrison in the GreenBiz.

“But the past month marks the “suddenly” turning point. First, the SEC’s proposed rule on climate disclosure and, late last week, the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB) — the group chartered with creating a unified set of disclosure standards to meet investors’ need for sustainability information — delivery of proposals that create a comprehensive global baseline of corporate sustainability disclosures.”

Read the article.

“Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton announces a $1,498,750 settlement against New Jersey-based Bed Bath & Beyond, Inc. (‘Bed Bath & Beyond’) as part of a settlement of a civil environmental prosecution,” was posted in East County Today’s California.

“The judgment is the culmination of a civil enforcement lawsuit filed last month in Ventura County Superior Court claiming that more than 200 Bed Bath & Beyond stores throughout the state (including Cost Plus, buybuy BABY, Harmon, Harmon Face Values, World Market, and Cost Plus World Market stores) unlawfully handled, transported and disposed of batteries, electronic devices, ignitable liquids, aerosol products, cleaning agents, and other flammable, reactive, toxic, and corrosive materials, at local landfills that were not permitted to receive those wastes.”

Read the article.

“Daimler AG will pay $2.2 billion to resolve a U.S. government diesel emissions cheating investigation and claims from 250,000 U.S. vehicle owners, court documents show,” reporting by David Shepardson in U.S. News via Reuters, Wire Service Content.

“The German automaker and its Mercedes-Benz USA LLC unit disclosed on Aug. 13 it had reached a settlement in principle resolving civil and environmental claims tied to 250,000 U.S. diesel cars and vans after the automaker used software to evade emissions rules.”

“Daimler said in August expected costs of settlements with U.S. authorities would total $1.5 billion, settling with owners will cost another $700 million and also disclosed “further expenses of a mid three-digit-million EUR (euro) amount to fulfill requirements of the settlements.”

Read the article.

“Attorney Andrew Frisch asked a Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday to vacate an order forcing him to represent Steven Donziger, the American lawyer who spent more than two decades suing Chevron Corp over pollution in Ecuador and is now facing a trial next week for criminal contempt,” reports Sebastien Malo in Thomson Reuters Westlaw Today.

“Donziger’s ex-lawyer Frisch told the court in filings that he has had no recent contact with Donziger, their relationship is beyond repair and under such circumstances his representation could violate the defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel.”

“On Aug. 28 senior U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ordered Frisch of Schlam Stone & Dolan, Donziger’s former lead defense attorney, to take the reins after the court disqualified two of Donziger’s attorneys and if another two out-of-state lawyers continue to decline or are unable to appear partly at the Sept. 9 trial due to concerns over contracting COVID-19.”

Read the article.

“Daimler said on Thursday it has reached agreements costing nearly $3 billion to settle civil investigations by U.S. regulators and lawsuits from vehicle owners stemming from a long-running probe into software to cheat diesel emissions tests,” report David Shepardson and Emma Thomasson in Reuters Environment.

“The settlements in principle address civil and environmental claims tied to 250,000 U.S. diesel passenger cars and vans in the United States and include claims from the Environmental Protection Agency, Justice Department, California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Attorney General’s Office.”

“The German carmaker said it expects the costs of the settlements with U.S. authorities will total $1.5 billion, settling with owners will cost about $700 million and ‘further expenses of a mid three-digit-million EUR (euro) amount to fulfill requirements of the settlements.'”

Read the article.

“He led the Minneapolis-based legal team at Faegre & Benson that distributed $1 billion to native Alaskans and fishermen affected by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill,” reports Jennifer Bjorhus in Star Tribune’s Local News.

“For nearly two decades, Brian O’Neill fought Exxon after the catastrophic 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.”

“The charismatic environmental lawyer led the Minneapolis-based legal team at Faegre & Benson that distributed $1 billion to thousands of native Alaskans and fishermen affected by the spill, a crusade chronicled in the book ‘Cleaning Up’ by Minnesota author David Lebedoff. It was a herculean chapter in O’Neill’s career. There were many others, including ones on wolves, bald eagles and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.”

“O’Neill died at his home in Minnetonka on May 6 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. He was 72.”

Read the article.

“Ann Arbor officials this week again delayed voting on a resolution to seek a federal Superfund cleanup of the Gelman dioxane plume,” reports Ryan Stanton in mlive’s Ann Arbor.

“City Council voted unanimously Tuesday morning, April 21, to postpone the matter until July 6, while city officials wait to see how legal negotiations with polluter Gelman Sciences play out in Washtenaw County Circuit Court.”

“Council also voted 10-1 to approve a fifth amendment to the city’s legal services agreement with Bodman PLC, which is representing the city in litigation against the polluter.”

“The contract is being increased by another $92,500, adding to $500,000 previously approved.”

“’The amount of time spent on recent negotiations, including the exchanges of drafts, court conferences, and providing advice as needed, has been more time consuming than anticipated,’ Assistant City Attorney Abigail Elias wrote in a memo.”

Read the article.

“Bayer AG has asked a California appeals court to overturn an $86 million verdict that found it was responsible for a couple’s cancer caused by its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup.” reports Tina Bellon in Reuter’s Environment News.

“Bayer in a statement on Monday said U.S. regulators had consistently found glyphosate to be non-carcinogenic and that the Pilliods’ lawyer during trial repeatedly violated court orders in an attempt to inflame jurors.”

“The company denies the allegations made by more than 42,700 plaintiffs in the United States, saying decades of studies have shown Roundup and glyphosate are safe for human use.”

Read the article.

“Attorneys sparred Friday over oil and gas drilling in Alaska – whether the government ignored environmental consequences and if it should reevaluate projects in light of climate science released after the project was first evaluated in 2012.” reports Karina Brown in Courthouse News Service.

“The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is 23.4 million acres of pristine wilderness named as a source of oil for the U.S. Navy in 1923. The vast area is important habitat for millions of migratory birds, marine mammals like beluga whales and home to the Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd – critical for Nuiqsut subsistence hunters. Congress handed management to the Department of the Interior in 1976 with the mandate to provide “maximum protection” to the area’s fish and wildlife habitat.”

“In 2016, ConocoPhillips Alaska found a new cache of oil in the reserve that would mean an additional 130,000 barrels per day – beyond the daily 500,000 barrels that flowed through TransAlaska Pipeline last year.”

Read the article.

“Can targeted advertising establish general jurisdiction over a foreign corporation?  The Fifth Circuit had not addressed this issue until Frank v. P N K (Lake Charles) L.L.C.  But in so doing, the court may have announced a new jurisdictional test with significant ramifications for future cases.” addresses Philip Dore & Cristian Soler in LexBlog’s Energy.

“Frank was a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in Texas state court against L’Auberge Hotel & Casino and its marketing division, PNK.  Following removal to federal court, the district court granted PNK’s motion to transfer, finding PNK was not subject to general jurisdiction in Texas.  The plaintiffs appealed.”

“The Fifth Circuit began by charting the Supreme Court’s general-jurisdiction decisions in Goodyear, Daimler, and BNSY.  For a corporation, the question is whether its “affiliations with the State are so continuous and systematic as to render it essentially at home in the forum State.”  A corporation is generally considered “at home” only in its state(s) of incorporation and principal place of business.  For PNK, this was Louisiana.  So, the question on appeal was whether this was the “exceptional case” where personal jurisdiction could also be exercised in another state.”

Read the article.

“Exxon Mobil dodged a bullet last month when a judge rejected a novel climate-change lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general. The case began with a promise from state officials that there would be a historic reckoning for the fossil fuel giant.” reports Erik Larson in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“It ended ignominiously as a failed accounting fraud claim.”

“Globally, humans are on the hook for trillions of dollars if they want to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions, acclimate to the damage already done and prepare for what is yet to come. As more governments and taxpayers find themselves staring down the barrel at rising climate costs, they are increasingly turning to the courts to hold Big Oil accountable.”

“Federal appeals courts on both sides of the country are considering whether such cases may proceed. Their rulings-one of which may come any day-will have a powerful effect on the future of climate change litigation.”

Read the San Francisco Chronicle’s article.

Schiff Hardin’s Environmental Group took a look prospects for renewable energy in 2020 and determined that development is expected to continue through 2020 and beyond.

Authors of the post in the Energy & Environmental Law Adviser blog are Alex Garel-Frantzen, Amy Antoniolli and Brett Cooper.

They discuss three key issues facing the industry for the coming year: waning federal government incentives; siting renewable energy projects at such locations as retired power plants and landfills can lower costs; and local communities can be slow to get on board with renewable energy initiatives.

See the article.

The Oil and Gas Lawyer Blog of Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody takes a look at a recently published issue brief titled “Reducing Oilfield Methane Emissions Can Create New US Gas Export Opportunities.”

Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy published the brief by Gabriel Collins.

Collins argues that instead of flaring gas, it should be liquefied and sold in the international market.

Read the article.

A post on Gray Reed’s Energy & the Law blog discusses the question: Under Louisiana law, does the operator’s bad faith preclude recovery for the non-operator’s breach of a joint operating agreement if the operator caused the non-operator to breach the JOA but did not itself breach?

Charles Sartain summarizes the background of Apache Deepwater, LLC v. W&T Offshore, Inc., a conflict between parties to a joint operating agreement for operations on offshore deepwater wells.

The case was complicated by conflicting provisions in the JOA.

Read the article.

Image by William Munoz

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson is again at the center of the climate change debate, as the former Exxon Mobil CEO prepares to take the witness stand regarding allegations his former company deceived shareholders about the financial risks posed by climate change, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Tillerson is scheduled to make an appearance at the New York Supreme Court Wednesday to answer questions about missing emails and varying carbon pricing schemes amid a growing wave of climate change litigation against the oil industry, according to the Chronicle‘s James Osborne.

The New York attorney general wants to answer the question of whether Exxon defrauded investors when it used one carbon price to estimate the potential taxes or fees the company might have to pay on greenhouse gas emissions from oil drilling projects and another in the economic modeling it presented to investors regarding future oil and gas demand.

Read the Houston Chronicle article.

Reuters reports that the Trump administration’s effort to cut red tape and speed up major energy projects has backfired in the case of the three biggest U.S. pipelines now planned or under construction.

Reuters reporters Scott DiSavino and Stephanie Kelly explain:

“The Republican administration tried to accelerate permits for two multi-billion-dollar natural gas lines and jumpstart the long-stalled Keystone XL crude oil pipeline that would start in Canada. Judges halted construction on all three over the past two years, ruling that the administration granted permits without conducting adequate studies or providing enough alternatives to protect endangered species or national forests.”

Read the Reuters article.

Taxpayers lose billions each year in royalties generated from oil and gas leases on public lands while fossil fuel developers reap profits at their expense, but Democrats have pushed legislation that would overhaul leasing laws that have not been updated in a century, reports Courthouse News Service.

For the eighth consecutive year, the Government Accountability Office placed the Interior Department’s oil and gas leasing program on its high risk list of federal programs mottled with waste, fraud and abuse.

That report found that “Interior’s methods to determine and collect royalties hasn’t been updated since 1920, and with the coal, gas and oil industry in far different shape today than it was a century ago, the time to develop a system that meets energy needs while delivering fair market returns is long overdue,” writes Courthouse News’ Brandi Buchman.

Read the Courthouse News article.

A group of 23 states on Friday sued to block the Trump administration from undoing California’s authority to set strict car pollution rules, one of the biggest U.S. battles over climate change, reports Reuters.

“The legal fight pits a Democratic majority state that has become the U.S. environmental champion against a Republican president who wants to boost the economy by cutting regulation,” writes Reuters’ David Shepardson. “The debate already is playing out ahead of the presidential election next year.”

Friday’s lawsuit takes aim at a U.S. Transportation Department conclusion that federal law preempts state and local regulation of vehicle fuel economy, including California’s rules.

Read the Reuters article.

A court recently ordered the seller of a car wash property in New Jersey to fully remediate previously undiscovered environmental contamination at the property in accordance with its contractual obligations, according to a post in the Riker Danzig Environmental Law Blog.

Jaan M. Hause explains in the post that “the seller could have more carefully crafted the language of the rider to limit its remediation obligations. Unfortunately for seller, the language in the rider obligating seller to remediate was extremely broad, and thus exposed seller to additional, costly liabilities that it did not intend to assume.”

Read the article.

Image by Mike Mozart

A California judge on Thursday reduced a $2 billion jury verdict, slashing the award for a couple who blamed Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup for their cancer to $86.7 million, according to a Reuters report.

A California Superior Court judge in Oakland said the jury’s billion-dollar punitive damages awards were excessive and unconstitutional, but rejected Bayer’s request to strike the punitive award outright, writes Reuters’ Tina Bellon.

The order could result in plaintiffs Alva and Alberta Pilliod receiving $17 million in compensatory and $69 million in punitive damages, down from $55 million and $2 billion, respectively.

Read the Reuters report.