Search Results for: offshore oil drilling

In this article, Sonja Rzepski, a JD candidate in environmental justice and clean energy at Vermont Law School  discusses the contrasting climate change policies of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Harris is highlighted as an advocate for environmental justice, known for her litigation against environmental violations and support for clean energy [...]

Protesters demonstrated in Belém, Brazil on Sunday during a Brazilian government environmental conference, The Amazon Dialogues, against the state oil company Petrobras’s proposal to begin offshore drilling at the mouth of the Amazon River. The proposed project is located in deep waters off the Brazillian state of Amapá. The protesters’ main concern is Petrobras’ lack [...]

A US Circuit Court judge Wednesday lifted an injunction against a federal “pause” on oil and natural gas leasing after a previous enjoinment prevented the ban from going into effect. Fifth Circuit Court Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham vacated a previous judgment from June 2021 that stopped the federal government from enforcing Section 208 of Executive Order [...]

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday announced that the California Department of Justice opened an investigation into an oil spill that occurred off the Huntington Beach coast earlier this month. Bonta shared that federal, state, and local authorities will investigate the oil spill to determine the spill’s cause and to assess what measures could have [...]

US President Donald Trump has issued a memorandum that extends the current moratorium on offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf and Atlantic coasts. This memo also extended the moratorium to the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. Under the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, Florida’s gulf waters are protected from offshore drilling until 2022. [...]

A federal judge issued an order Tuesday allowing a case filed by South Carolina against the Trump administration over seismic testing for offshore oil exploration to proceed. Judge Richard Gergel dismissed several of South Carolina’s legal arguments but allowed the case to proceed under their claim that Trump’s executive order authorizing the exploration exceeded his [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases Tuesday. In Parker Drilling Management Services. Ltd. v. Newton, the question asked is whether California can adopt its own overtime rules over federal wage law, for workers on oil rigs attached to the Outer Continental Shelf. In this case previously decided by the US Court [...]

A number of clean energy and environmental protection ballot measures were voted down Tuesday. These ballot measures ranged from more conventional measures requiring certain percentages of a state’s electricity production to come from renewable sources to more radical measures including direct taxes on carbon emissions and the requirement of an open and competitive electricity market. [...]

California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation Saturday intended to block the Trump administration’s move to allow drilling off the coast of his state. SB-834, drafted in January, “prohibits … granted public trust lands from entering into any new lease or other conveyance authorizing new construction of oil- and gas-related infrastructure upon tidelands and submerged lands [...]

Here's the domestic legal news we covered this week: The legal world is a busy place. US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke on Thursday announced plans to make much of the US coast available for potential...