Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
The Delaware River Basin Commission (“DRBC”), the first government-and-state joint venture in river basin planning since the birth of the nation, itself, won a substantial—but narrow—victory on Friday when the 3rd Circuit ruled that individual state senators did not have standing to challenge the fracking ban in Northern PA inacted by DRBC in February of 2021. …
On May 19, 2022, a Colorado federal district court judge, the Honorable Marcia S. Krieger, issued an opinion and order remanding action, preventing—for now, at least—an expansive fracking plan in Western Colorado from going forward even though it had previously been approved by the United States Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of the …
On Aug. 3, 2021, Chief U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson rejected the effort to prevent hydraulic fracturing (fracking)—the method of extracting oil and natural gas by injecting high-pressure fluid into subterranean rock formations—near archeological and cultural sites in the Mancos Shale geological formation in New Mexico, determining that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) …
One day after Earth Day 2021, California, a state that is routinely—if somewhat surprisingly—among the top five states for oil production, placed a moratorium on new hydraulic fracturing (fracking) by 2024 and the complete end to oil extraction in the state by 2045. Fracking, the process of extracting oil or natural gas from the earth …
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, remains an ever-present topic on the national political stage when discussing climate change and energy sources. During the first week of March, two articles discussing the health effects of fracking in southwestern Pennsylvania were published, garnering significant media attention to the issue. On March 1, 2021, Environmental Health News released the …
The door is now closed on conducting high volume hydraulic fracking in the Delaware River basin (DRB). On February 25, 2021, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) voted to finalize the temporary fracking ban they instituted in 2010 due to concerns over potential water pollution, which resulted from fracking wastewater. The DRBC was created in 1961 …
Throughout the past decade, the human health effects that may be caused by hydraulic fracturing have been widely scrutinized by a variety of individuals, institutions, and experts. Allegations of health problems ranging from respiratory complications, birth defects, blood disorders, cancers, nervous system issues, and other ailments have attempted to be linked to fracking operations in …
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently dismissed a putative class action (i.e., an uncertified class), alleging that fracking operations by various natural gas companies in Oklahoma increased the risk of earthquakes in the state, causing property insurance premiums to rise for local residents. In Meier v. Chesapeake Operating LLC, et. al., residents of Oklahoma …
Environmental remediation work is about to pick up steam in Florida. In his first major policy act, recently inaugurated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a broad executive order last Thursday aimed at tackling numerous water and environmental issues confronting the state. DeSantis, who was inaugurated on January 8, took office facing a number of environmental crises, including unprecedented levels of …
Earlier in 2017, we reported the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to reinstate a landowner’s challenge to the Delaware River Basin Commission’s (DRBC) moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the 24 county region, spanning across parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and New Jersey. In that decision (Wayne Land & Mineral Group LLC v. Del. River Basin Comm’n), the court held that the definition of the …