Two weeks remain before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Kisor v. Wilkie , a likely landmark case for energy and infrastructure companies. When the Supreme Court granted certiorari in December 2018, it took the case specifically to decide whether to overturn Auer v. Robbins 1 , which holds that courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations. This Energy Legal Blog® post kicks off a short series about Kisor and Auer ’s significance for developers of energy and non-energy infrastructure. Write-ups on these cases are plentiful, but our perspective is different...

The comment floodgates are open for the proposed federal Waters of the United States (“WOTUS”) rule. The rule would re-define the phrase “waters of the United States” which dictates the geographic reach of the Clean Water Act. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army made the pre-publication rule available starting on December 11, 2018, but the comment period has only now officially begun with a notice in the Federal Register published on February 14, 2019. Currently, due to litigation over the Obama Administration’s 2015 WOTUS rule, pre-2015 regulations and guidance...