As I train back from the second day of the Environmental Law
Forum, here are some takeaways from the presentations I attended
today:
1. The Environmental Hearing Board Roundtable session continues
to be one of the most useful and entertaining sessions at the
Forum.
The five judges of the EHB offered pointers and procedural
insights on practice before the Board, covering the pre-hearing
phase and the hearing itself. One particularly interesting
discussion related to what seems to be an uptick (perhaps driven by
Marcellus Shale appeals) in party requests to designate discovery
materials, and sometimes motion exhibits, as confidential business
information (CBI). The judges are very cognizant of the
balance to be struck between protection of documents that fit
within the scope of the CBI rules on the one hand, and the public
interest in open and transparent proceedings on the other. The
panel's general sense was that even when the parties to the
appeal jointly
