Speaking Energy
As the energy industry continues to grow and change with new technologies, markets and resources, the Speaking Energy blog provides readers with key updates and insights.
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Speaking Energy
(Houston) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce it has released its “2020 Energy Year in Review,” which examines the current state of the global energy market and highlights the energy matters with which the firm was involved last year across the following areas:
- Mergers, Acquisitions & Strategic Transactions
- Capital Markets
- Financing
- Project Development
- Financial Restructuring
- Energy Litigation.
Speaking Energy
The National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce jointly released the new Special Administrative Measures (Negative List) for the Access of Foreign Investment (2019) in China (the “2019 Negative List”) on 30 June 2019. The 2019 Negative List reduces the number of “prohibited” or “restricted” industries from 48 to 40 and will come into force on 30 July 2019.
Speaking Energy
On December 3, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an order requesting the Solicitor General to weigh in on a case related to the legal status of some types of groundwater.1 The catch? The Court’s order comes with an unusually expedited one-month deadline, a move that the Court rarely takes. This surprising action foreshadows the potential for an earlier-than-expected decision on an issue with deep ramifications for those in the energy industry.
Specifically, the Court aims to address a circuit split among the 4th, 5th and 9th Circuits in determining whether only direct discharges to “navigable waters” (rivers, lakes and other surface waters, for example) are covered or whether groundwater that is “hydrologically connected to surface water” is subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) pollution discharge requirements.2 Groundwater—that is, water held beneath the soil or in between rock structures—does not fall under CWA jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for many years, maintained that pollutants that flow with a direct and immediate hydrologic connection through groundwater into surface waters are properly regulated under the CWA.3 Environmentalists agree with EPA’s long-standing position, while many in industry say that the agency is reaching beyond its scope.