On July 9, 2021, President Biden signed an “Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy.” According to a Fact Sheet released in advance of the signing, the Executive Order takes “decisive action to reduce the trend of corporate consolidation, increase competition, and deliver concrete benefits to America’s consumers, workers, farmers, and small businesses.” 

Last week, in North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals suggested that Congress did not intend for the states, or tribes, to take final action on Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 applications within a year of filing.

During the August 5-6, 2019 Executive, Licensing, and Legislative Committee Meetings, the Contractors State License Board discussed proposed amendments to Section 7141.5 to reduce both the burden on it to review applications for retroactive renewal of a license that had not been timely submitted and to provide contractors with some relief from the high burden to establish “the failure to renew was due to circumstances beyond the control of the licensee.”

On June 24, 2021, City of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a new order titled Vaccine Paid Sick Leave Due to COVID-19 (the Order). The Order is intended to reduce barriers workers face when seeking the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Florida’s rear-end presumption rule and the loss of consciousness defense, in car accident cases, was recently the focus of a Third District Court of Appeals decision in Hernandez v. Mishali, 46 Fla. L. Weekly D1016 (Fla. 3d DCA May 5, 2021).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will revise a 2020 final rule clarifying requirements for water quality certification under the Clean Water Act (CWA). 85 Fed. Reg. 42210 (June 2, 2021). CWA Section 401 requires states and tribes to certify that any discharges associated with a federal permit will comply with applicable state or tribal water quality requirements.

Right on cue with mask mandates being lifted, a new NYC law aimed at the ever-popular facial recognition software takes effect on July 9, 2021. New York City’s Biometric Identifier Information Law applies to a broad array of biometric data and will have important implications for businesses going forward.

The parties to the seminal litigation on the application of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., have received preliminary approval for a proposed class action settlement with an anticipated value of $36 million. If final approval is granted, the settlement would be the second-largest BIPA class action to resolve, trailing only Facebook’s record $650 million settlement for 1.6 million members.