A Texas court, ruling on a petition for pre-suit discovery, held that it would have jurisdiction over a major oil corporation's potential lawsuit against several California cities that have filed suit against it relating to climate change. The company's potential claims would allege, among other thi...

A district court granted California cities' motions to remand their climate change tort actions against oil and gas companies back to state court. Although their state law claims raise national and perhaps global questions, they should not have been removed to federal court. Removal based on federal...

A Pennsylvania appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court's decision that the owner of an oil and gas company should be liable for failing to plug 47 abandoned oil and gas wells located in Erie and Crawford Counties. The state environmental agency issued an administrative order requiring th...

A district court held that public interest and environmental groups lacked standing to challenge the "two-for-one" executive order issued by President Trump on January 30, 2017. The order requires executive branch agencies to identify two existing regulations to be repealed for every new regulation,...

The New Jersey Superior Court upheld an oil company's $225 million Spill Act settlement in connection with contamination at two oil refineries in Bayonne and Linden, New Jersey. The natural resources damages were estimated at $8.9 billion. In a settlement agreement, the New Jersey Department of Envi...

The Delaware Supreme Court held that an energy company's shareholders cannot proceed with their suit against the company's directors and officers over the costs of addressing a coal ash spill into North Carolina's Dan River. In 2014, a storm water pipe ruptured beneath a coal ash containment pond, r...