Author: Modrall Sperling

The Presidential Executive Order on Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the “Waters of the Unites States” (WOTUS) Rule issued on February 28, 20171 articulated the Trump administration’s policy on navigable waters, and attempted to roll back…

On his second day in office, President Trump issued several executive orders and memoranda intended to overhaul the environmental review and approval process for pipeline and other infrastructure projects. Among them was EO 13755, intended to expedite environmental reviews and approvals for…

Introduction: President Trump’s recent executive orders and ongoing commitment to regulatory reform are finding complimentary provisions in the form of a number of bills being considered in Congress. One of those bills, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017,1 includes a provision that…

As noted in a previous update,1 on January 6, 2015 the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resource Revenue (ONRR) announced a proposed rulemaking amending its regulations governing valuation, for royalty purposes, of oil and gas produced from Federal onshore…

On February 22, 2017, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision finding that the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, established by, as relevant here, an 1896 treaty, was diminished by a 1905 Act of Congress in which the Eastern Shoshone…

April 7, 2017 was the last day for the Governor to sign, veto, or pocket veto any bills passed by the New Mexico legislature during the 2017 legislative session.  What passed and what did not is significant for New Mexico’s renewable energy…

In a recent opinion, the New Mexico Court of Appeals refused to affirm a jury verdict finding that several affiliated entities qualified as either “joint venturers” or “joint employers.”  See Wirth v. Sun Healthcare Grp., Inc., 2017-NMCA-007, 2016 N.M. App. LEXIS 94….