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EPA Adopts Clean Power Plan
Earlier this week, the EPA adopted rules under the Clean Air Act intended to ensure that by 2030, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing power plants will be 32 percent below 2005 levels. The rule establishes emission performance rates for foss...
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As a Matter of Fact, Raisins Are Protected By the Fifth Amendment
Earlier this year we wrote about the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case of Horne v. Department of Agriculture (here). In that case, the court of appeals ruled that a Department of Agriculture marketing order that required raisin farmers to divert a...
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Housing Crisis in Central Oregon—What a Difference Five Years Makes
Central Oregon's residential property values rose faster in the mid-2000s' housing bubble and fell harder in the 2008 crash than those in other Oregon areas. Bend, especially, has been a boom-and-bust kind of town since at least the late 1970s. The b...
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Neighbor Loses Right to Use Driveway: Part II
Last year, we wrote about the Gamboa v. Clark case, in which Division III of the Washington State Court of Appeals set a high bar for proving the existence of prescriptive easements. A prescriptive easement arises when one openly and adversely uses t...
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Narrowing the Scope of Subcontractor Indemnity
Owners, developers, and general contractors, beware: the protection afforded by a subcontractor's responsibility to pay for lawsuits arising from its work (what is known as "indemnity") might not be as broad as originally thought. A recent Oregon Cou...
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Back in the Bubble?
It has been close for a few months, but Seattle house prices and full-on seller's market are now confirmed in this report from the Puget Sound Business Journal. Prices are now all the way back to the 2006 peak with no indication of slowing down. In t...
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