The UN Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (“BBNJ” or “BBNJ Agreement”), also called the High Seas Treaty, is the first comprehensive international agreement in history to lay out a legal framework for protecting the high seas. First introduced in 2023, the Agreement has recently received waves of both signatures and ratifications, bringing it closer to enforcement.
The July 2025 issue of The SandBar is now available. The lead story is: "Supreme Court Shrinks EPA’s Clean Water Act Authority".
On June 3rd, 2025, a California court ordered the Houston-based oil company Sable Offshore Corp. (Sable) to halt the opening of the Las Flores Pipeline System in Santa Barbara, California. This is a significant blow to Sable’s attempt at revitalizing and reopening the Santa Ynez Unit (Unit), the oil platforms and pipes responsible for the 2015 Refugio oil spill.
In 2009, President George W. Bush created three marine national monuments conserving and protecting over 195,000 square miles. These designations created environmental safeguards by prohibiting commercial fishing and the extraction of natural resources within the area.
Plaintiffs sued the state of Mississippi for introducing private leasing of on-bottom oyster harvesting on public reefs. In 2023, the Mississippi Legislature passed a law to authorize the DMR to lease up to eighty percent of the state-owned reef permitted areas available.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024-2025 Term was another important one for environmental law! The Court issued opinions in several cases with implications for the management of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources. In this webinar, the National Sea Grant Law Center will discuss in detail the court’s rulings related to the proper scope of environmental review under NEPA and a challenge to the EPA’s Clean Water Act permitting authority. We’ll also touch on a few smaller cases and revisit some major opinions from previous terms, such as Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, to see how the legal and regulatory system is responding. The webinar will conclude with a preview of the Court’s 2025-2026 term. The Law Center has applied to the Mississippi Commission on Continuing Legal Education for approval of this course for 1 hour of CLE credit.