January 30, 2020

Council on Environmental Quality Proposes Amendments to NEPA Regulations

The Legal Intelligencer 

(by Ben Clapp, Varun Shekhar, Casey Snyder and Brianne Kurdock)

If a newly proposed rulemaking is finalized, the process by which federal agencies are required to analyze the environmental impacts caused by their actions could be comprehensively updated for the first time in over four decades. On Jan. 10, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register to update its regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). The proposed revisions seek to narrow both the scope of projects that must be reviewed under NEPA, as well as the nature and extent of such review. These changes are intended to reduce the time, cost and workload required to comply with NEPA, and could also make it more difficult for opponents of agency actions that seek to block those actions in court based on alleged NEPA violations.

Background of NEPA

NEPA, enacted in 1970, is a procedural law; it does not mandate substantive environmental outcomes. The purpose of NEPA is to promote accountability and transparency in federal decisions to ensure that environmental concerns are integrated into federal decision-making. The CEQ, a division of the Executive Office of the President, is charged with overseeing implementation of NEPA  CEQ first promulgated regulations implementing NEPA in 1978.

NEPA applies to major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, including those undertaken by nonfederal entities that receive federal funding or require federal permitting approvals. Federal agencies have three primary means of complying with NEPA. First, federal actions that have previously been determined to involve no significant impacts to the environment may receive a categorical exclusion (CE) from a more in-depth and time-consuming, review. …

January 24, 2020

Trucking regulators look to alleviate cost increases, while keeping safety first

Smart Business

(by Jayne Gest with Boyd Stephenson)

The trucking industry is still adjusting to the final transition to electronic logging devices (ELDs). Some relief may be on the horizon, however, as federal regulators consider whether to relax the hours of service requirements.

“Every solution has unintended consequences, and that is exactly what we are seeing now,” says Boyd A. Stephenson, associate at Babst Calland. “The supply chain is like a balloon, where everything is interconnected. You push on one part and another piece will pop out.”

Paper logbooks are left to the discretion of the driver, while ELDs record driving time automatically to ensure driving hours are strictly followed. The idea is to make the roads safer. Effective now, strict enforcement of the ELD mandate applies to all drivers, unless they operate under the short-haul rule exemption.

The trucking industry is dealing with rising transportation costs and an overall driver shortage in an economic expansion. Freight volumes also grew more slowly in 2019, with trade conflicts and tariff increases taking a toll on growth.

An American Transportation Research Institute survey found that the top industry concerns for 2019 were driver shortages, hours of service, driver compensation and detention or delays at customer facilities. These obstacles increase trucking costs, which get passed on to shippers that need their goods transported.

Smart Business spoke with Stephenson about hours of service rules and other industry changes that businesses should be aware of in 2020.

Why did the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) feel a need to change the hours of service rules?

With ELDs in place, drivers cannot adjust their logs. Difficulties like wait time while cargo is loaded or unloaded, weather and traffic have highlighted the need to adjust the hours of service and let drivers spend more time on the road. …

January 22, 2020

The Council on Environmental Quality Proposes to Amend NEPA Regulations

Environmental Alert

(by Ben Clapp, Varun Shekhar, Casey J. Snyder and Brianne K. Kurdock)

On January 10, 2020, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register to revise regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).  These revisions could significantly affect projects in several industries, including infrastructure development, that require approval by federal agencies.

NEPA is a procedural statute that requires federal agencies to evaluate environmental impacts associated with proposed major actions.  Major actions are actions subject to federal control and responsibility with potential significant effects.  CEQ’s regulations that implement NEPA aim to ensure that environmental effects from such actions are considered before they are undertaken.  These regulations have never been comprehensively revised since they were promulgated in 1978, despite statutory changes that provided for a more streamlined NEPA review of certain infrastructural projects.  The Trump administration first signaled its intent to update the NEPA regulations in 2017, when it issued an Executive Order directing CEQ to review the environmental review process to enhance its efficiency, specifically for major infrastructure projects.  In June 2018, CEQ published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) soliciting comments on potential revisions to the NEPA regulations.  CEQ considered those comments when developing the current proposed rule.

Summary of CEQ’s Proposed Changes

CEQ has proposed extensive revisions to its regulations in an effort to create a more efficient and timely NEPA review process.  The proposed changes would impact several fundamental aspects of the NEPA process, such as the application and scope of NEPA review, analysis of alternatives, and timing requirements.  Key proposed changes include:

  • Revision of the term “effects.”  This revision would alter the scope of an agency’s effects analysis under NEPA. 

    • …

January 14, 2020

Pennsylvania Supreme Court establishes requirements for easements by necessity

The PIOGA Press

( by Megan Mariani and Nicholas Habursky)

The modern oil and gas industry is a complex and multifaceted operation involving significant upstream, midstream and downstream infrastructure. Well pads located on the surface are necessary to extract the oil and gas from the subsurface. A constantly expanding network of pipelines are required to transport the produced oil and gas from the well pad to places of market or refinement. This complexity requires a constant balance of property rights between surface owners and mineral owners and operators. One mechanism by which the parties balance property rights is through the use of easements. Easements can be created in several different ways, including through an implied easement by necessity which was recently addressed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Bartkowski v. Ramondo, No. 60 MAP 2018, 2019 Pa. LEXIS 6100 (October 31, 2019).

Implied easement by necessity

Before discussing Bartkowski, it is helpful to understand the elements of an implied easement by necessity. In Pennsylvania, for an implied easement by necessity to exist, three elements must be met:

  1. Title to the dominant and servient properties were once held by one person;
  2. This unity of title must have been severed by a conveyance of one of the tracts; and
  3. The easement must be necessary for the dominant owner to use the land, with the necessity existing both at the time of the severance of title and at the time of the exercise of the easement. An easement by necessity is always of strict necessity and not a mere matter of convenience.

Claiming an easement by necessity involves inherent risks. …

January 9, 2020

Trump Administration Partners with US DOT in Releasing New Autonomous Vehicle Guidance

Emerging Technologies Alert

(by Justine Kasznica, Ashleigh Krick and Boyd Stephenson)

On January 8, 2020, the Trump administration, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT), issued Automated Vehicles 4.0: Ensuring American Leadership in Automated Vehicle Technologies. This is the federal government’s fourth iteration of its voluntary guidance on autonomous vehicles (AVs). So far, the US DOT’s hands-off approach to AV regulation has allowed for technological innovation while allowing industry participants and states to explore different avenues for testing AV technologies on public roads.  AV 4.0 does not disturb this approach, and instead focuses on explaining the research and development happening across the federal government and the opportunities for stakeholders to become involved.

Background

In September 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued its first guidance on AVs called the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy.  The Policy provided a model state policy framework, explained NHTSA’s current regulatory tools to address AVs, and described potential new tools and authorities that NHTSA could use in addressing AVs.  NHTSA also provided vehicle performance guidance to AV manufacturers and developers for designing, testing, and deploying AVs.

NHTSA replaced this guidance in September 2017 with Automated Driving Systems 2.0 (ADS 2.0).  ADS 2.0 established a “Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment”, recommending that entities engaged in the testing and deployment of AV technologies voluntarily submit an assessment of how they address safety to establish public trust and confidence in the technology. AV 2.0 outlined 12 safety elements (including system safety, operational design domain, crashworthiness and others).  By the end of 2019, only a small fraction (under 25 percent) of AV testers published such assessments.  ADS 2.0 also provided guidance to state legislatures on potential legislation and best practices for regulatory bodies charged with ensuring roadway safety. …

January 9, 2020

RGGI’s New Relative, TCI: A Cap-and-Invest Initiative for Emissions from Transportation Fuel

Environmental Alert

(by Julie R. Domike and Gina N. Falaschi)

A new regional program under consideration in 12 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia would create a cap-and-invest program for GHG emissions from fossil fuels used in transportation. The initiative proposed by the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) – a regional collaboration of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and the District of Columbia that seeks to improve transportation, develop the clean energy economy and reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector – would be similar to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which administers a cap and trade program for power plant GHG emissions.

TCI released a draft memorandum of understanding (TCI MOU) on December 17, 2019, which anticipates that each participating jurisdiction will follow its legal process to adopt a program consistent with a jointly developed Model Rule to implement the final TCI MOU. TCI plans to finalize the Model Rule by the end of 2020 after a 60-day comment period and expects that the TCI cap-and-invest program could be implemented in 2022.

The cap and invest program would begin with an initial GHG emissions allowance cap assigned to each participating jurisdiction, which would then decline each subsequent year to bring about a reduction of emissions from the transportation sources. These emission allowances would be distributed at auctions, and funds generated from these auctions are anticipated to fund low-carbon and clean mobility options in urban, suburban, and rural communities. The contemplated program will cover all gasoline and on-road diesel fuel dispensed at the terminal rack and require fuel suppliers to hold emissions allowances equal to the GHG emissions from the fuel they distribute in the participating jurisdictions. …

January 8, 2020

Arbitration Means Arbitration: Golden Eagle Resources II v. Willow Run Energy

(by Mychal Sommer Schulz)

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals recently signaled that it would treat arbitration issues under the West Virginia Revised Uniform Arbitration Act, W. Va. Code § 55-10-8, et. al. (the “Act”), exactly the same as arbitration issues that arise under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

In Golden Eagle Resources II, L.L.C. v. Willow Run Energy, L.L.C., No. 19-0384 (Nov. 19, 2019), the Court addressed a written contract by which Willow Run conveyed mineral interests in property to Golden Eagle. The written contract contained an arbitration provision by which the parties agreed that any “disagreement between the Parties concerning this Agreement or performance thereunder” would be submitted to arbitration. A dispute arose about whether a cloud on title existed on the mineral interests conveyed, which led Golden Eagle to withhold payment for those interests, after which Willow Run filed a breach of contract civil action in the Circuit Court of Pleasants County.

Golden Eagle sought to dismiss the civil action and have the dispute referred to arbitration. After the circuit court agreed to allow Willow Run to amend its complaint to include a declaratory judgment claim against additional defendants who allegedly may have created the cloud on title, the circuit court refused to refer Golden Eagle’s claims to arbitration because it found that (1) W. Va. Code § 51-2-2(d) (2017) grants circuit courts jurisdiction “to remove any cloud on the title to real property, or any part of the cloud, or any estate, right or interest in the real property[,]” and (2) the additional parties in the amended complaint, who were not signatories to the arbitration agreement, were necessary parties to the dispute as they allegedly may have cause the cloud on the title to the mineral interests conveyed to Golden Eagle. …

January 8, 2020

Legal Tech: Babst Calland & Solvaire: An AI Contract Review Use Case

Law Journal Newsletters

(by Christian A. Farmakis)

Babst Calland and our technology affiliate, Solvaire, have been performing complex due diligence, discovery, and document management projects for clients for more than 20 years. Our clients look to us for due diligence guidance in the areas of acquisitions and divestitures, as well as complex corporate, commercial and real estate transactions.

The firm has a long history of utilizing the latest technologies to enhance contract review. And, in the last few years, the firm has taken a deep look at AI-assisted review and its ability to enhance efficiency and reduce cost for clients. Saying that we have become “AI Believers” in the process is an understatement. After many AI tool evaluations, trials, and getting numerous AI projects under our belts, we have become our clients’ go-to resource in leveraging AI for their benefit.

Taking Off On an AI Journey

In today’s business climate, clients demand greater efficiency when it comes to contract review for many complex deals and transactions. We have found that the combination of deep legal expertise, coupled with embracing carefully researched and vetted technology, is the most effective means of delivering high quality and timely review in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Over the last few years, our firm has embarked on an exhaustive search for tools that will help us deliver more value to our clients. We spent the first 36 months of our AI journey reviewing nine different well-known contract review tools. Within the last 12-18 months, we have incorporated specific tools into the firm’s due diligence and contract management processes. We are particularly excited about our selection of Diligen, which we find to be a high-performance contract review platform. …

January 8, 2020

Babst Calland Expands Environmental Practice

Attorney Richard S. Wiedman Joins Firm

PITTSBURGH, PA – Babst Calland announced today the addition of veteran environmental attorney, Richard S. Wiedman, who joined as a shareholder at the Firm’s Pittsburgh headquarters.

Mr. Wiedman is joining Babst Calland’s team of highly-focused environmental attorneys in providing senior-level legal and regulatory counsel, particularly in the areas of environmental, permitting, environmental business counseling, and environmental litigation.

“We are very pleased to welcome Rick to our Firm and to our established team in Pittsburgh. I have known Rick for over 30 years and he is a natural fit for us as he shares our values, experience, and philosophy in serving clients, some with whom we already have existing relationships,” said Donald C. Bluedorn II, Managing Shareholder of Babst Calland. “Rick is a great addition as we continue to expand Babst Calland’s team and capabilities to serve the needs of existing and new clients across the country.”

Since 1980, Mr. Wiedman has represented clients before federal and state environmental agencies, and counseled clients on regulatory compliance issues and environmental considerations in a variety of business transactions. He also devotes significant time to the negotiation and prosecution of environmental permit and regulatory challenges, the defense of federal and state enforcement actions, and the representation of clients in remedial action/corrective action and cost recovery matters under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and their state counterparts.

His experience reflects the interrelationship of the major regulatory programs as they pertain to industrial activities. Many of the projects with which he is involved require the coordination of multidisciplinary efforts where creative engineering and technical approaches are often critical to the development and success of legal and regulatory strategy. …

January 6, 2020

West Virginia DEP Opens Comment Period on New Wetland Assessment Tool

Environmental Alert

(by Christopher B. “Kip” Power)

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) recently released a new tool consisting of a standardized method for the functional assessment of wetlands, known as the West Virginia Wetland Rapid Assessment Method (WVWRAM). According to the WVDEP’s public notice accompanying its release, the WVWRAM represents the agency’s first effort to devise a state-specific protocol that will rate not just the quantity and type of wetlands, but also their chemical, physical, and biological integrity in arriving at a regulatory score. For permitting and mitigation scenarios (including off-site mitigation and creation of mitigation banks), that WVWRAM score will then be used as an input into the existing functional assessment tool known as the “West Virginia Stream and Wetland Valuation Metric” or “SWVM.”

The WVWRAM was developed as a part of the WVDEP’s federally-funded Wetland Program Plan and has been in the works for at least five years, with field testing in 2017 and 2018 that involved some 22 stakeholder organizations. In addition to the WVWRAM computer model, the WVDEP released an 11-page Field Form (data sheet), a User Manual, and a Reference Manual that were prepared by WVDEP scientists. The WVDEP plans to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Inter-Agency Review Team (IRT) to incorporate the WVWRAM into Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting for sites in West Virginia, and in the preparation of corresponding mitigation plans that are required to compensate for unavoidable loss or damage to wetland resources caused by permitted activities. According to the WVDEP press release, five two-day WVWRAM training workshops were held in 2019, with 122 participants from 40 organizations completing the necessary training to use the new protocol.

Generally, the agency does not expect there will be any change to the average amount of mitigation required for Section 404 projects in West Virginia, but mitigation required for individual projects will change, as the loss of low-functioning wetlands will require less mitigation than before and destruction of higher-functioning wetlands will require more mitigation. …

January 2, 2020

Update On Proposed Water Quality Standard for Manganese

RMMLF Mineral Law Newsletter

(By Joseph K. Reinhart, Sean M. McGovern, Hannah L. Baldwin)

EQB Approves Changes to Water Quality Criterion Limit

At its December 17, 2019 board meeting, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (PADEP) Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a 20-member independent board that reviews and adopts all PADEP regulations before publication for public comment, approved PADEP’s proposed rulemaking to set a new ambient water quality criterion limit for manganese. See Proposed Rulemaking Preamble, PADEP, “Water Quality Standard for Manganese and Implementation” (Dec. 17, 2019); see also Vol. XXXVI, No. 3 (2019) of this Newsletter.

The amendments to water quality standards and standards implementation for manganese were developed pursuant to an October 30, 2017, amendment to section 1920-A of the Administrative Code of 1929, 71 Pa. Stat. § 510-20, known as Act 40 of 2017, directing the EQB to promulgate a manganese water quality criterion within 90 days. See Water Quality Standard for Manganese, 48 Pa. Bull. 605 (Jan. 27, 2018) (advance notice of proposed rulemaking). The Pennsylvania General Assembly passed the Administrative Code change as part of a budget package, with the requirement related to manganese regulation added as an amendment in the Senate.

The amendments approved by the EQB in December 2019 propose to delete manganese from Table 3 at 25 Pa. Code § 93.7 (relating to specific water quality criteria) and add manganese to Table 5 at 25 Pa. Code § 93.8c (relating to human health and aquatic life criteria for toxic substances), changing the numeric water quality criterion standard for manganese from 1 mg/L to 0.3 mg/L. …

December 20, 2019

Pittsburgh Paid Sick Leave Law Coming March 2020

Employment and Labor Alert

(by Stephen Antonelli and Alexandra Farone)

The City of Pittsburgh recently announced that the Paid Sick Days Act is slated to take effect on March 15, 2020. This Act requires employers to provide their employees with paid sick leave based on hours worked. The Act will apply differently to employers of different sizes:

  • For employers with 15 or more employees, eligible workers must be provided one hour of paid leave for every 35 hours worked, up to a maximum of 40 hours of paid leave per year.
  • For employers with less than 15 employees, eligible workers must be provided one hour of unpaid leave for every 35 hours worked, up to a maximum of 24 hours of paid during the first year of enforcement. After one year from the effective date of the Act, these small employers must provide one hour of paid leave for every 35 hours worked, up to a maximum of 24 hours of paid leave per year.
  • Employers based outside of Pittsburgh must begin offering leave under the Act for any of its employees that spend at least 35 hours working inside city limits.

Eligible employees include full- and part-time employees who work within the geographical limits of the City of Pittsburgh. The following types of workers are not eligible for leave under the Act: federal and state employees, independent contractors, construction workers in a collective bargaining unit, and seasonal employees as defined by the Act. Accrued leave may be carried over to the following calendar year unless the employer opts to “frontload” the maximum amount of leave at the beginning of each year. Sick time under the Act may only be used for the employee’s illness, injury, or health care; …

December 20, 2019

FMCSA Seeks Comments About Advanced Safety Technologies

Emerging Technologies Alert

(by Boyd Stephenson and Justine Kasznica)

On December 18, 2019, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA or Agency)  published an information collection notice which proposes a limited scope for implementing the Beyond Compliance motor carrier safety program.[1]  According to the notice, FMCSA personnel intend to query a little over 100 motor carriers with strong safety records about what technologies they employ and what programs or practices they engage in to achieve strong safety results.  According to the notice, this research will be packaged into a technical report, which the Agency researchers will then incorporate into a Beyond Compliance report the Agency is required to transmit to Congress.  If only motor carriers are consulted, technology providers may lose the opportunity to identify safety innovations that are not yet widely known to the trucking industry.  The docket for comments will remain open through February 18, 2020.

Background

In the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015, (FAST Act) Congress directed the FMCSA to establish the Beyond Compliance program.[2]  Congress designed Beyond Compliance to identify advanced trucking safety technologies and practices that are not required by regulation but which improve safety.  After identifying these technologies, motor carriers would participate in the Beyond Compliance program by adopting these advanced safety technologies.  FMCSA would then reward the carriers by publicly recognizing the motor carrier.  Congress has also directed the Agency to deprioritize trucks operating for carriers that meet Beyond Compliance criteria for roadside inspection by either creating a new measurement category in FMCSA’s online CSA Safety Management System (SMS) or by designating that Beyond Compliant carriers’ CSA SMS scores are otherwise improved by participating in the program.

Congress also required FMCSA to adopt a process in which any interested party could submit a technology or process for inclusion in the program.  …

December 19, 2019

As the Law and Zoning Trends Evolve, So Must Your Zoning Ordinance

The Legal Intelligencer

(by Blaine A. Lucas and Alyssa E. Golfieri)

Now is the optimal time for municipalities to take a fresh look at their zoning ordinances to ensure they not only comply with state law, but that they are positioned to handle the influx of new and currently trending land uses.

As 2019 comes to a close and a new wave of elected local officials get ready to take their seats, now is the optimal time for municipalities to take a fresh look at their zoning ordinances to ensure they not only comply with state law, but that they are positioned to handle the influx of new and currently trending land uses.

Municipalities derive most of their authority to regulate the use of land from the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, 53 P.S. Section 10101 et seq., (the MPC). The MPC was first enacted in 1968 and expressly authorizes municipalities to enact zoning ordinances to permit, prohibit, regulate and determine uses of land; the size, height, bulk, location, erection, construction repair, maintenance, alteration, razing, removal and use of structures; the area and dimensions of land to be occupied by uses and structures; the density of populations and intensity of uses; methods for protecting and preserving natural and historic resources; and methods for protecting and preserving prime agricultural lands and activities, see Section 603(b) of the MPC, 53 P.S. Section 10603(b).

Since the adoption of the MPC and the enactment of hundreds of local zoning ordinances pursuant to the same, land use types and development patterns have continued to change and evolve. Some of these changes have prompted the General Assembly to implement legislative solutions, while others are left for navigation at the local level and ultimately in the courts. …

December 19, 2019

Babst Calland Expands Washington, D.C. Environmental Practice

Attorney Ben Clapp Joins Firm

Babst Calland announced today the lateral move of Ben Clapp, who joined as associate in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office in the Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources, and Emerging Technologies practice groups.

For the past decade, Ben Clapp has advised clients on environmental and transactional matters across a wide range of industries including the upstream, midstream, and downstream oil and gas sectors, renewable energy, real estate, utilities, chemicals, manufacturing, mining, pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, and food and beverage.

“Ben’s move to Babst Calland further represents the firm’s commitment to continue to meet the environmental and regulatory needs of our clients,” said James Curry, Managing Shareholder of the D.C. office.  “Ben Clapp is well-known in industry and among key regulators. We’re very pleased that he has joined our team.”

Mr. Clapp has significant experience advising clients on the environmental components of complex transactions, including identifying and analyzing significant environmental liability and compliance issues arising in connection with mergers and acquisitions, asset sales, securities offerings, project financings, and corporate restructurings.  He works to manage, allocate or mitigate these environmental risks in the client’s best interest.

Mr. Clapp also advises project developers and investors as they encounter state and federal environmental review, facility siting, and permitting requirements, with a particular focus on providing advice on National Environmental Policy Act requirements to clients seeking government agency approvals for large-scale energy and infrastructure projects.

Mr. Clapp earned his J.D., cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law in 2008 and B.A. from the University of Richmond in 1996.

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