Related Links: EPA regulation on cars and light trucks information page Court's Oct. 15 order granting certiorari in six consolidated greenhouse gas cases The U.S. Supreme Court will revisit federal regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act but set strict limits on how it will do so. The high court on Oct. 15 agreed to hear six consolidated cases during its current term to decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2010 rule governing emissions from new cars and light trucks also gave the agency the authority to set new permitting requirements for powerplants, refineries and other "stationary sources"
Related Links: Text of Judge's Order to EPA Industry Position on Congressional Coal Ash Legislation A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to move forward with a stalled rule governing coal-ash disposal but offered few details on how the EPA should proceed.In a Sept. 30 order, Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would issue an opinion with more specifics by Oct. 30. EPA proposed the coal-ash regulation in 2010.Environmental groups filed suit in 2012 against EPA, seeking to have the agency designate coal ash as a hazardous material
Related Links: Text of final SEC regulation (see pp. 206-231) PDF Text of SEC's proposed version of the rule (from Jan. 6, 2011 Federal Register) In a win for engineering firms, a recently issued Securities and Exchange Commission rule largely excludes design firms from having to register with the SEC as "municipal advisors."Approved by the SEC on Sept. 18, the final rule says engineering firms won't have to register if they provide "engineering advice" to municipal agencies. The SEC says such advice can include feasibility studies that contain projected output capacity, utility rates, market demand or revenue based on a
Photo by AP Wideworld Obama wants Boehner to bring Senate-passed stopgap spending bill up for a House floor vote. Boehner continues to call on the president and Senate Democratic leaders to come to the negotiating table and discuss ways to end the partial government shutdown and raise the U.S. debt limit. Photo Courtesy of Office of House Speaker/Caleb Smith Related Links: ENR Government Shutdown Update (10/4/2013) Federal Funding Cutoff Hits Many, But Not All, Projects As the partial federal shutdown continued, President Obama traveled to a Maryland construction company on Oct. 3 and criticized House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for
Related Links: American Subcontractors Association's Supreme Court Brief PDF Atlantic Marine Construction's Reply Brief PDF There are no direct flights and 1,505 miles between Killeen, Texas, and Virginia Beach, Va., the base cities of J-Crew Management Inc. and Atlantic Marine Construction Inc., respectively. J-Crew says Atlantic Marine owes it $160,000 for work it performed as a subcontractor on a $7.4-million child development center in 2011 at Fort Hood, near Killeen. Instead of suing in Virginia, which its contract requires, J-Crew sued in federal court near the U.S. Army base. A federal appeals-court judge in Austin upheld J-Crew's right to sue
Related Links: OMB 9/17/13 guidance to agencies on implementing shutdown USDOT info on shutdown impact at FHWA, FTA, FAA and its other agencies As Senate Democrats and House Republicans unleashed streams of blame at each other for the fiscal standoff that closed much of the federal government on Oct. 1, construction industry officials were studying how the shutdown will affect federal contracts and grants. Federal construction aid totals tens of billions of dollars a year.The Office of Management and Budget made clear in a Sept. 17 memo that, during a funding lapse, an agency cannot award, extend or renew contracts
Related Links: Supreme Court to Hear NLRB Recess Appointment Case Supreme Court Argument Calendars One of the most highly charged cases dealing with presidential legal authority and labor policy will come before the U.S. Supreme Court when its 2013 term opens on Oct. 7. The court also will hear arguments this fall in other key construction-related cases.Topping the list is NLRB v. Noel Canning, which focuses on the legality of appointments to the National Labor Relations Board made during a pro forma session of Congress. The high court's decision could influence construction-industry labor practices, too. The Obama administration has said
Related Links: Press release from office of U.S. Attorney for D.C. A former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official has pled guilty to a federal charge that over more than a decade, he carried out a scheme to cheat the government of almost $900,000 in salary and benefits that he was not entitled to, the Dept. of Justice said.John C. Beale, 64, who worked for EPA from 1989 until last April 30 in the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, entered a guilty plea to a charge of theft of federal property on Sept. 27 in U.S. District Court for the
Related Links: EPA Blog Announcing Draft Proposed Rule Action EPA Background on "Waters of the U.S." Definition, Including Links to Court Cases The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers have drafted a proposed rule that they say aims to clear up the issue of which bodies of water fall under federal regulatory jurisdiction and which do not.Construction officials are concerned that EPA and the Corps will define federally regulated waters too broadly. Environmental groups praised the agencies' action.EPA and the Corps sent their draft proposal on Sept. 17 to the Office of Management and Budget, which will coordinate
Photo Courtesy of AEP AEP halted work in 2011 on a CCS system at its Mountaineer plant in West Virginia. Related Links: Information on EPA's proposed carbon pollution standard for new powerplants President Obama's Climate Action Plan Toxic Air: The Case for Cleaning Up Coal-fired Power Plants (PDF) Environmentalists and public-health advocates are lauding a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from new electric powerplants, but electric utilities and other industry groups say the proposal would effectively kill new coal-fired generation plants in the U.S."We do not expect to see a whole lot of new coal being proposed, and once this
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