Latest Legislation Headlines

All the headlines from our Legislation Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Judge Worried Freedom Industries to Abandon Chemical Spill Cleanup

Sep 10 2014 // A bankruptcy judge is concerned that a chemical company may abandon the site of a massive January spill without cleaning it up.Judge Ronald Pearson expressed the concern in an order filed last Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy...

West Virginia Nixes Special Session on Storage Tank Rules

Sep 10 2014 // West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin plans to use administrative fixes instead of a special session to adjust a law regulating above-ground storage tanks.On Monday, Tomblin’s top environmental official spelled out a...

Is There a House Republican Deal on Export-Import Bank, Terrorism Insurance?

Sep 9 2014 // Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican who has been a key opponent of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, now supports a short-term extension of the bank’s mandate, opening the door to a temporary reprieve for...

Supreme Court May Get ‘Disparate Impact’ Housing Case

Sep 8 2014 // It’s not easy to prevent the Supreme Court from deciding an issue once the justices have agreed to hear a case.But over the past two years, civil rights advocates have managed to do just that by coaxing settlements...

Maryland’s Montgomery County Tells Uber to Follow Taxi Rules

Sep 8 2014 // Maryland’s Montgomery County officials want to know how Uber expanded its popular ride-sharing service into Bethesda without applying for county licenses.The Washington Post reports the county is demanding that Uber...

Judge Denies Class Action for Employees Suing Florida’s Darden Restaurant

Sep 8 2014 // A U.S. judge has ruled that food servers and bartenders employed by Darden Restaurants Inc., which owns chains including Olive Garden, the Capital Grille and LongHorn Steakhouse, cannot sue the company as a group for...

Florida’s Crist, Scott Spar Over Property Insurance in Race for Governor

Sep 8 2014 // Democrat Charlie Crist said he successfully reduced rising property insurance rates as governor and will do so again if elected, vowing to repeal a law enacted under Republican Gov. Rick Scott that he said provides weaker...

High on Marijuana Insurance

Sep 8 2014 // The legal marijuana industry in the United States is experiencing tremendous growth.Legal cannabis markets in the United States are expected to grow 700 percent over the next five years, according to an industry report...

Judge’s Ruling Leaves Florida Workers’ Comp System in Limbo

Sep 8 2014 // Business interests are expected to appeal a recent ruling by a Florida circuit court judge that the state’s workers’ compensation law is unconstitutional because it no longer provides adequate benefits to...

Kentucky Preparing Emergency Regulations for Rideshare Firms

Sep 5 2014 // Kentucky state regulators are preparing emergency regulations that will go into effect next month to govern ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft as they expand their services into Kentucky cities.The companies offer a...

MetLife May Fight Systemic Risk Designation

Sep 5 2014 // Insurer MetLife said it is exploring ways to fight the U.S. government’s proposal on Thursday to deem it “systemically important” and subject it to stronger regulatory oversight.MetLife is the third...

Detroit Bond Insurer to Judge: Debt Plan Causes ‘Serious Mayhem’

Sep 5 2014 // Detroit’s proposal to exit its record municipal bankruptcy by paying retirees more than bond investors will cause “serious mayhem,” an attorney for the plan’s opponents told a judge.Marc...

California Judges Recommend $1.4B Safety-related Penalty Against PG&E

Sep 4 2014 // California regulatory judges recommended a $1.4 billion penalty on Tuesday _ the largest safety-related levy ever against a public utility in the state _ for a fiery 2010 gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people in...

Judge Rules BP Was ‘Grossly Negligent’ in Gulf Oil Spill

Sep 4 2014 // BP Plc acted with gross negligence in setting off the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, a federal judge ruled, handing down a long-awaited decision that may force the energy company to pay billions of dollars...

Global Regulators Call for Closer Regulation of Financial Firms

Sep 3 2014 // Financial industry regulators need better coordination in the event of a big multinational financial institution failing or breaching compliance rules, the world’s top supervisory bodies have concluded in a...

South Carolina Ex-Lawmaker Viers Pleads Not Guilty in Contractor Insurance Case

Sep 2 2014 // A lawyer for a former South Carolina House member said he may not have realized what he was doing was wrong when he moved around the assets of a businessman who an insurance company was pursuing after he defaulted on a...

Florida Judge Sentences Mastermind of $800M Fraud Scheme to 20 Years

Sep 2 2014 // The man who masterminded an $800 million insurance scam that fleeced tens of thousands of investors in one of Florida’s all-time largest fraud schemes was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison. U.S. District Judge...

Illinois Rideshare Bills Vetoed; Insurance Groups Urge Override

Aug 27 2014 // Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has vetoed legislation that would have imposed statewide regulations on commercial ridesharing companies, also known as transportation network companies (TNCs).Quinn said he vetoed House Bill 4075,...

NCCI Proposes Average Workers’ Comp Rate Decrease of 2.5% in Florida

Aug 26 2014 // Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation announced it received the 2015 Florida workers’ compensation rate filing by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), which proposes a statewide average...

A Fracking Compromise for Colorado

Aug 26 2014 // On the second day of his vacation, surrounded by science fiction and comic book fans at Comic Con, Alan Salazar looked around the San Diego Convention Center for a quiet place so he could take a phone call from his boss.It...