Aside from the destruction that flows from it, how does a hurricane along the Gulf Coast affect the maritime industry that operates hundreds of terminals and moves thousands of ocean-going ships and inland tows along its waterways?
With the approach of a hurricane, the U.S. Coast Guard Captain of the Port…
COMPLIANCE AUDIT PROGRAM
Blank Rome Maritime has developed a flexible, fixed-fee Compliance Audit Program to help maritime companies mitigate the escalating risks in the maritime regulatory environment. The program provides concrete, practical guidance tailored to your operations to strengthen your regulatory compliance systems and minimize the risk of your company becoming an enforcement statistic. To…
Jeanne M. Grasso and Holli B. Packer ●
On September 20, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) signed a highly anticipated final rule establishing national standards for incidental discharges from vessels into waters of the United States, albeit nearly four years after its statutory deadline. However, existing requirements included in the 2013 Vessel General Permit…
Heavy fuel oil (“HFO”), commonly known as bunker fuel or residual fuel oil, has been widely used by vessels for decades due to its low cost and ready availability. However, due to its high sulfur and heavy metal content, the International Maritime Organization (“IMO”) has steadily enacted regulations to limit the…
Anthony Rapa, Alan G. Kashdan, and Brendan S. Saslow ●
Overview
On July 29, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued proposed rules that would significantly expand controls under the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) regarding exports for certain end uses, certain end users, and U.S. person activities.…
Jeanne M. Grasso and Holli B. Packer ●
On August 21, 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard (“USCG”) outlined its intent to prepare the “Viability Testing Method Consideration for Acceptance Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (“PEIS”)” in the Federal Register (89 Fed. Reg. 67646), which will be used to evaluate, and potentially adopt, organism viability testing methods…
Jonathan K. Waldron, Dana S. Merkel, and Holli B. Packer ●
The Supreme Court of the United States’ June 28, 2024, decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024), dealt a blow to the “Chevron deference.” Loper Bright eliminated the judicial mandate that courts defer to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous language…
In the Fifth Circuit, for the longest time, deciding whether a contract was maritime involved assessing a litany of factors derived from the court’s Davis & Sons v. Gulf Oil Corporation case, specifically:
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Holli B. Packer and Keith B. Letourneau
The International Longshoremen’s Association (“ILA”) members’ strike, which consists of tens of thousands of port workers across the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, October 1, 2024, as the union rejected employer group United States Maritime Alliance’s (“USMX”) final proposal made on Monday, which fell…
