Partner Considers New Rules for Natural Resource Damage Assessments

In November 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) circulated revisions to its procedures for assessing natural resource damages resulting from the release of hazardous substances into the environment. The new rule permits the use of Habitat Equivalency Analysis, which emphasizes the restoration of natural resources instead of economic damages.

In his most recent New York Law Journal column, Bryan Cave LLP New York Partner Philip Karmel provides background on natural resource damages litigation and outlines the Habitat Equivalency Analysis technique permitted by the new rule.

“By incorporating Habitat Equivalency Analysis as a permitted damage assessment technique, DOI brings its rules up-to-date with the use of this approach in the past for cooperatively performed assessments and settlement negotiations,” Karmel writes. “The rule gives natural resource trustees further leverage in these negotiations because they can now point to the rule as providing for the use of Habitat Equivalency Analysis to measure natural resource damages.”

Karmel is a member of the Environmental, Product Liability, Real Estate and Commercial Litigation Client Service Groups. His practice includes environmental and real estate litigation, the defense of toxic torts and related insurance matters. He is a frequent author and speaker.

Click on the attachment below to read his full article. This article is reprinted with permission from the March 24 edition of the New York Law Journal.