Category:Uncategorized
Court’s Denial of Motion to Dismiss Advances Blocks of Offshore Drilling
Congress has granted the President the authority to withdraw the Secretary of the Interior’s grants of mineral rights on public lands. However, President Trump has used that same grant of power to remove withdraws of some of the protections President Obama placed. On May 3, 2017, a group of environmental non-profits filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration in the Federal District Court of Alaska, alleging that his actions were an unauthorized use his Presidential power. On March 20, 2018, the Court denied the Defendant’s motion to dismiss.
Coal Ash Regulation: Revisited
Power plants generate a residue after burning coal called coal ash. In October 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established standards to address the environmental dangers and health risks of coal ash. In May 2017, industry officials petitioned the EPA to reconsider the rule, claiming adverse effects due to high compliance costs. The EPA agreed to review the coal ash regulations and announced one of two proposals to amend regulations in March 2018. The new proposal provides facilities more flexibility in coal ash disposal based on their needs.
Trump Administration Deregulates Housing
As President Donald Trump continues to deliver on his promise to deregulate, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been instrumental in reversing Obama-era regulations. President Trump, who made his fortune in real estate development, has a checkered past when it comes to fair housing and discrimination. Now his administration is working to cut funding to HUD and unwind many fair housing and discrimination rules. Administration proponents say this is a necessary step to fix a broken and corrupt bureaucracy, while many advocates have expressed concern over the government scaling back enforcement of fair housing laws. Any reform effort should seek to balance concerns about bureaucracy with the vital missions of fair discrimination-free housing, inclusive communities, and civil rights.
TAX TALK SERIES: IRS Clarifies Post-TCJA Confusion on Home Equity Interest
On December 20, 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) designed to decrease the taxable rate for corporations and individuals, and significantly limited allowable deductions. Since this change to the Tax Code was one of the largest since the Reagan era, the Internal Revenue Service will need to publish many regulations and advisories in the coming months to better clarify provisions of the TCJA. This multi-part series will explore prominent IRS regulations and advisories as they relate to the TCJA, and what these regulations and advisories mean for both individual and corporate taxpayers.
Deregulation of Uranium Mining or: How I Learned to Stop Regulating and Love the Bomb
Compliance professionals all over the country are paying close attention to the Trump administration’s deregulatory campaign. While deregulation in finance has received the most media attention, the uranium mining industry has been a quiet beneficiary of the President’s new regulatory scheme.
Waters of the United States
The Obama administration’s “Clean Water Rule” was designed to control pollution in approximately 60% of the country’s bodies of water. The Rule primarily extended current federal regulations to smaller bodies of water, requiring that pollution of rivers and wetlands be held to the same environmental penalties as larger bodies of water. However, the Trump administration has suspended enforcement of the regulation for two years. During that time, they will re-consider the definition of “waters of the United States.” The Trump administration intends to release a new version this year.
Delivering the Nuclear Promise . . . Revisited
I authored a post last year regarding the nuclear energy industry’s current initiative to reduce operational costs to compete with the ever-dropping cost of energy production. Coined “Delivering the Nuclear Promise,” the initiative aims to enlist cost-cutting initiatives such as reducing staffing and removing superfluous requirements that maintain large margin to regulatory thresholds. Companies have set hefty goals to bring the cost of nuclear energy production down to values that would make nuclear energy competitive against less expensive, highly backed, and not-as-clean, forms of energy. This all needs to be done without sacrificing safety.
In order to achieve these drastic measures, I will set forth the case for on-the-rise technologies, that while the nuclear energy industry does not currently have the infrastructure to support, will aide in this transition, and as I argue, ultimately be required in order to sustain this clean and necessary form of energy.
Threat of the Border Wall: Impact on the Enforcement of Environmental Regulation
In early January of this year, the House Committee on Armed Services granted an extension to a bill that would increase border security. An unlikely opponent of this bill is the environmental lobby, since the bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to waive the requirements of some of the most important environmental protection statutes. These statutes have been the basis for almost all the citizen enforcement in the environmental arena; they work to maintain protections for 73 different areas along the border, along with numerous endangered species.
Market Giants Move to Redesign Healthcare
In January 2018, Warren Buffet, Jamie Dimon, and Jeff Bezos announced that Berkshire Hathaway, JP Morgan Chase, and Amazon would partner together to form a non-profit company aimed at improving the United State healthcare system and combating ever-increasing costs. The idea for the project came about from the ongoing discussion between the three CEOs regarding providing healthcare for their, collectively, approximately 840,000 employees. Even though details are scarce, given the importance of the issue and the prominent names attached to this project, the press, the public, and the market have reacted accordingly. In other words, people are scrambling to figure out what this might mean for their companies and our healthcare system as a whole.
TAX TALK SERIES Understanding Notice 1036: IRS Adjusted Withholding Tables to Accommodate New Tax Plan
On December 20, 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) designed to decrease the taxable rate for corporations and individuals, and to limit allowable deductions. Since this change to the Tax Code was one of the largest since the Reagan era, the Internal Revenue Service will need to publish many regulations in the coming months to better clarify provisions of the TCJA. This multi-part series will explore prominent IRS regulations as they relate to the TCJA, and what these regulations mean for both individual and corporate taxpayers.