Insights

Washington – June 5, 2025: Crowell & Moring earned 80 rankings for 71 lawyers, as well as 43 national and statewide practice area rankings, in the Chambers USA 2025 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and lawyers at peer firms.

San Francisco – May 29, 2025: Stacey Geis, former deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has joined Crowell & Moring’s Environment, Energy and Natural Resources and White Collar and Regulatory Enforcement groups as senior counsel in its San Francisco office. Geis brings over 25 years of experience, at the federal and state levels, in environmental law and policy, litigation, and criminal and civil enforcement. 

Jon Welner will be interviewing Larry Goldzband, the Executive Director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), on the Commission’s new plan to prepare the SF Bay Area for sea-level rise. BCDC is the agency responsible for permitting all development on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. On December 5, 2024, the BCDC adopted the Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan (RSAP). The RSAP is a region-wide plan for the San Francisco Bay shoreline that guides the creation of coordinated, locally planned sea level rise adaptation actions that work together to achieve a regional One Bay Vision. This includes BCDC’s guidelines for how local governments must meet the requirements of SB 272, a new State mandate that requires all local governments along the shoreline to prepare a Subregional Shoreline Adaptation Plan by 2034.

The Crisis of Investment Arbitration: What's Next? explores the challenges of protecting the environment within the current international investment law regime. It offers a comprehensive overview of International Investment Law, focusing on emerging trends that seek to integrate environmental values into arbitration between states and foreign investors. The panel will highlight key developments and challenges, while assessing potential pathways for harmonizing environmental protection with investment arbitration practices. It will also provide insights into how the evolving landscape might better accommodate environmental goals.

Federal climate policy in the United States is undergoing significant turmoil. But what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic? The European Union continues to pursue policies that address climate change, including through reporting requirements and carbon trading and border taxes. European judges are also seeing more and more litigation related to these and other policies, meaning that court cases are increasingly playing a role in shaping the future direction of European climate policy.

The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”), various federal agencies, and Congress are all actively investigating recipients of federal funding for alleged waste, fraud and abuse—with a keen focus on recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars in grants, loans, and other funding through the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Our experienced panel will discuss the potential legal and political exposure arising from those investigations, and how to mitigate that risk by establishing best practices for responding to agency and congressional investigations.

Federal grants are one of the areas most affected by changes under the Trump Administration. Join Crowell & Moring attorneys as we explore how Administration actions continue to impact grant recipients; discuss best practices in response to suspensions and terminations of awards, delays in payment, and changes to programmatic requirements; and share insights about pending and likely litigation.