Articles Posted in Environmental

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Maryland lawmakers have overridden the governor’s veto to enact legislation directing a statewide assessment of climate-related costs, while New Jersey lawmakers are preparing a January committee hearing for the State’s pending Climate Superfund Act. Together, these actions underscore continued state-level interest in both study-based and liability-focused climate-cost attribution frameworks, even as four separate lawsuits challenging state climate superfund statutes in New York and Vermont proceed in federal court.

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On December 9, 2025, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) issued proposed regulations and a staff report for California’s comprehensive climate disclosure laws, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) and the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act (SB 261). These proposed regulations come less than a month after the Ninth Circuit issued an injunction temporarily halting enforcement of SB 261, at least until a January 9, 2026, hearing on the plaintiffs’ requested longer-term injunction through the remainder of the First Amendment challenge to the laws. The draft regulations would adopt some, but not all, of the provisions proposed by CARB in its public workshops on the laws to date, and notably would scale back applicability to those companies above a threshold level of sales in the state. The proposed regulations also define key terms, establish the program fee structures, explain fee enforcement and set initial reporting timelines. The written comment period begins on December 26, 2025, and ends on February 9, 2026. CARB will hold a public hearing on the proposed regulations on February 26, 2026 at 9 a.m. PST.

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For decades, the phrase “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) has dictated whether a wetland, stream, or pond falls within federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Two years and a change in administration later, EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have returned with a new proposal aimed at aligning the rulebook with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA and restoring a degree of predictability to one of the most litigated terms in environmental law.

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On November 18, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an injunction temporarily halting the implementation of California’s SB 261, the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, just weeks before the law’s first mandated disclosures on January 1, 2026. The court declined to stay California’s companion climate emissions disclosure bill, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253), due to that bill’s less immediately pressing compliance deadline of August 2026.

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On November 12, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Texas’s request for primacy over Class VI underground injection control (UIC) wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act, authorizing the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) to issue and oversee permits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) injection projects. The final rule makes Texas the sixth state to secure primacy over Class VI wells—following North Dakota, Wyoming, Louisiana, Arizona and West Virginia—and marks EPA’s third such approval in the last several months.

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CARB-logo-300x225The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released a preliminary list of companies it believes may be subject to the state’s new climate disclosure regime, which imposes significant disclosure duties on large United States entities “doing business in California”—even if the business they do in California is not itself large. CARB’s list comes after a federal trial court declined to stay the rules, with the first compliance deadline set to go into effect January 2026 even as the agency’s implementing regulations remain under development.

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Coalitions of Republican-led states, industry associations led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and, most recently, the U.S. Department of Justice are testing “climate superfund” laws that aim to recover billions from carbon majors for climate adaptation costs. Recent rulings in lawsuits challenging the New York and Vermont statutes have split cases across courts and reached opposite outcomes on intervention: In New York, cases are being split between the Northern and Southern Districts and intervention efforts by nonprofits have been blocked, while in Vermont, the district court has allowed environmental organizations to join the defense of the statutes in two cases.

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This post reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s significant regulatory and administrative law decisions from the Court’s 2024 Term and previews cases on the docket for Fall 2025. While the term produced no true “blockbusters,” the Court displayed particular concern with how lower federal courts have been applying the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and it clarified the already complex judicial review provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA). At the same time, the Court declined invitations to revisit contentious issues surrounding CAA citizen suits and avoided intervening in the wave of state-law climate change litigation. Consistent with its current composition, the Court continues to take a conservative approach, closely hewing to statutory text and structure.

Our review is organized in three parts: first, environmental and energy law cases; second, administrative law rulings that delineate the boundaries of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA); third, we discuss the environmental, energy and administrative law cases the Court has agreed to hear in its October 2025 Term.

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On June 9, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed granting the State of Texas  primary enforcement authority—commonly referred to as “primacy”—over the permitting and regulation of Class VI underground injection control (UIC) wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). This would authorize the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) to regulate the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) through Class VI wells—an essential component of carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure.

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In a closely watched opinion issued on May 16, 2025, the Texas Supreme Court in Myers-Woodward, LLC v. Undergrounds Services Markham, LLC, — S.W.3d —, No. 22-0878, 2025 WL 1415892 (Tex. May 16, 2025) resolved a long-uncertain issue of subsurface property rights in the context of salt dome mining. The Court held that, unless a deed provides otherwise, subsurface voids created by salt mining operations are owned by the surface estate holder, not the mineral interest holder. By rejecting a salt-specific rule, the Court harmonized ownership principles across subsurface formations, applying a uniform rule regardless of the type of mineral removed.

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