The Dakota Access Pipeline and What It Means

On September 9, 2016, 30 minutes after winning and stopping the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s (“Sioux” or “Tribe”) request to enjoin the Dakota Access Pipeline (“DAPL”), the Obama administration upended the rule of law. The Departments of Justice, Army and the Interior issued a joint statement that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) “will […]

The recent shale boom has greatly increased the amount of natural gas produced and transported across the country’s network of pipelines in recent years. Unfortunately, the increase in production has resulted in several significant environmental and safety incidents, including a widely reported 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, that killed 8 people and […]

At the end of September 2014, BLM released the proposed rule to create a competitive leasing process for solar and wind energy development on public lands. While most of the proposed rule relates to the renewable energy right-of-way (“ROW”) procedures under the Federal Land Management Policy Act (“FLPMA”) regulations (43 CFR 2800) announced in 2012, […]