Lewis Roca Blog

On March 18, 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) released its Photovoltaics End-of-Life Action Plan.

On February 16^th, the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) published an interim document to guide the regulation and permitting of carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (“CCUS”) technologies.

On January 26^th, Arizona Corporation Commissioners voted 3-2 against modifications to the state’s Energy Rules.

On January 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Certiorari in Sackett, Michael, et ux. v. EPA, et al. on the limited question of “[w]hether the Ninth Circuit set forth the proper test for determining whether wetlands are ‘waters of the United States’ under the Clean Water Act.”

On December 21, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) published a Notice in the Federal Register calling for expressions of interest and nominations for utility-scale solar development on parcels of land within seven identified solar energy zones (“SEZ”) on a combined 89,589 acres of public land. The seven SEZs include Antonito Southeast, DeTilla Gulch, and Los Mogotes East in Colorado; Dry Lake Valley North, Gold Point, and Millers in Nevada; and Afton in New Mexico.

OIRA’s Fall 2021 Unified Agenda outlines the near and long-term regulatory actions each federal agency intends to take before the Spring 2022 Unified Agenda is released.

On Monday, President Biden signed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law. The measure will deliver $550 billion in new federal spending over 5-years and will direct $650 billion in already appropriated dollars into new and existing funding programs for project development.

Late last month, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) issued Instruction Memorandum 2021-046 to reinstate both BLM Manual Section (MS-1794) and BLM Handbook (H-1794-1), which restore previously rescinded BLM policies on mitigating operator impacts on public lands managed by the BLM.

On October 7, 2021, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) proposed certain changes to its regulations implementing the National Environmental Quality Act (NEPA).

On Friday, September 10th, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) noticed a competitive offer of solar energy development on public lands in Beaver County, UT.

On August 30, 2021, Judge Marquez of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona vacated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (“Corps”) (collectively “Government Defendants”) 2020 “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” (“NWPR”), finding that the NWPR had “fundamental, substantive flaws that cannot be cured without revising or replacing the NWPR’s definition of ‘waters of the United States.’”

On Friday, July 9th, the White House issued an Executive Order on ‘Promoting Competition in the American Economy’. The Executive Order directs over a dozen federal agencies to undertake 72 initiatives that address “…some of the most pressing competition problems across our economy…”.

On Tuesday, June 29, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reverse the Third Circuit and affirm that authorized natural gas pipeline developers have the ability to exercise federal eminent domain over state and municipal lands.