Given the current administration’s ambitious agenda of deregulation, prioritization of American interests, and reshaping of the federal workforce, legal professionals have been deep in the trenches, keeping pace with change and pivoting to best advise their clients. As 2025 comes to a close, D.C. lawyers weigh in on recent court decisions, legislation, regulations, and agency priorities that made an impact in their area of law and that are expected to continue to shape legal practice in 2026.
Climate Rollbacks, Fossil Fuel Expansion
In 2025 the federal government set a course for environmental and energy policy law that differs markedly from the Biden administration. On his first day in office, President Trump signed Executive Order 14162, “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” ordering the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The current administration also directed a reorientation toward domestic fossil fuel development. In Executive Order 14154, titled “Unleashing American Energy,” the president directed federal agencies to “identify those agency actions that impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources — with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.” This order also rescinded Biden administration executive actions relating to environmental regulations, climate change, and energy policy.
In addition, the order revoked President Carter’s Executive Order 11991, which directed and empowered the Council on Environmental Quality to adopt regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Trump’s executive order allows individual agencies to interpret and implement NEPA requirements independently, which can lead to variability and potential legal challenges.
In July 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its proposal to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding Rule, the basis for EPA’s standards for regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty vehicles. The rule has also provided the scientific, legal, and policy rationale for other regulations limiting GHG emissions from power plants and other stationary sources.
The EPA proposal invites a new review of the science linking GHGs to public health risks and calls into question settled law concerning the scope of EPA’s authority to regulate GHG emissions as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. While the U.S. Supreme Court arguably answered this question in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, today’s Court could be receptive to reconsidering EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions specifically and executive agency authority more generally given recent decisions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and West Virginia v. EPA.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on key environmental cases in 2025, including City and County of San Francisco, California v. EPA, in which the majority sided with San Francisco, holding that EPA’s permitting provisions did not match with the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) focus on technological and effluent standards, but rather imposed “end-result” requirements for water quality, which would have been contrary to the CWA. In Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, the Supreme Court affirmed an individual agency’s judgment for evaluating environmental impacts under NEPA. And in Diamond Alternative Energy LLC v. EPA, the Court found that fuel producers have Article III standing to challenge EPA’s approval of California regulations that require automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles.
Looking to 2026, the EPA proposal creates regulatory limbo for the next several years. In the meantime, manufacturers of vehicles and engines must balance the possibility of new federal regulatory standards, the uncertain survival of California’s stricter vehicle emission standards given congressional attacks on EPA waivers, and other pending regulatory actions to inform next steps in compliance and deployment of capital for future operations.
On the global front, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued in July 2025 a widely noted advisory opinion on climate change. The ICJ opinion surveyed customary law and treaties, including the Paris Agreement, and concluded that these set forth “obligations for States to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.” — By Richard Blaustein and Lisa Anne Hamilton. Blaustein is a D.C. Bar member and freelance journalist covering the environment, science, and legal issues. Hamilton, a climate law and policy expert, is a steering committee member of the D.C. Bar Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Community.
Sweeping Changes in Tax Law
The One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), passed by a slim margin and signed into law by President Trump on July 4, was the single most consequential event in tax law in 2025. The act introduced a wide array of changes to tax law affecting individuals and businesses, and it is expected to impact nearly every sector of the economy and every type of taxpayer.
Provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that were due to expire at the end of 2025 were made permanent, with some modifications, as was the allowance for domestic research, development expensing, and bonus depreciation.
The opportunity zone program, created as part of the TCJA, was made permanent by establishing rolling 10-year periods and including changes that narrowed the definition of “low-income community” and created “qualified rural opportunity funds.”
Incentives for commercial investment in the OBBB include the new full expensing provision for qualified production property. This provision allows taxpayers to deduct 100 percent of the cost of constructing new manufacturing facilities in the United States rather than depreciating those costs over 39 years, though several limitations may narrow the provision’s applicability.
The New Markets Tax Credit program, created as part of the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000, was permanently extended. The program encourages investment in low-income communities. The OBBB allocates $5 billion to be awarded to community development entities engaged in qualifying activity on an annual basis beginning in 2026.
In the energy sector, the OBBB eliminates or phases out certain renewable energy credits in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, increases the investment credit for semiconductor manufacturers for certain new facilities, and allows oil and gas companies to exempt intangible drilling and development costs when calculating their corporate alternative minimum tax.
International tax regulations saw widespread modification. The OBBB significantly reformed the foreign-derived intangible income regime, rebranding it as foreign-derived deduction eligible income, beginning in tax years following December 31, 2025. The bill also made substantial changes to the global intangible low-taxed income regime, renaming it “net controlled foreign corporations tested income,” signaling a shift in focus from intangible income to a broader taxation of all foreign earnings of controlled foreign corporations. — By D.C. Bar staff writer and attorney Jeremy Conrad.
Shifting Priorities in Cybersecurity & Data Privacy
Legislation in the United States focused on cybersecurity and privacy has been dynamically evolving in 2025 at both the federal and state level. As of August this year, at least 19 states have enacted comprehensive privacy laws. While most contain a fairly comprehensive set of data subject rights, only California has a private right of action to bring suit, though limited to certain types of data breaches implicating personal data theft. Remarkably, in contrast to most other state privacy laws, the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act does not consider revenue thresholds or volume of data processed to set a threshold for applicability; some narrow exemptions exist for small businesses, however.
As to the long-awaited federal legislation on privacy protection, there is little likelihood that the American Privacy Rights Act will become law next year, unless the agenda and priorities of lawmakers change. Cybersecurity insurance might be regulated at the federal level with the introduction of the Insure Cybersecurity Act of 2025, but again this will likely take many months in the most favorable scenario. In the meantime, enforcement of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program is finally scheduled to get started in November 2025, setting higher cybersecurity requirements for contractors of the U.S. Department of War.
In January 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a Final Rule on Bulk Data Transfers, which restricts large-scale transfer of sensitive personal data of Americans to certain foreign countries. Separately, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finalized changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, setting new requirements around the collection, use, and disclosure of children’s personal information.
FTC has also released an updated version of the Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, which may have a palpable impact on AI-powered systems. The eventual enforcement of the rule, however, remains unclear as it might be at odds with the White House’s strategy on unrestrained development of AI across the country. The invalidation of FTC’s “click-to-cancel” rule by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, just before the rule’s scheduled entry into force in July, further illustrates the challenges to ad- ministrative rulemaking since the overturning of the Chevron doctrine by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024.
Meanwhile, in response to the growing number of data breaches, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published a proposed amendment to the HIPAA Security Rule to strengthen cybersecurity safeguards for electronic protected health information. The rule may come into force early next year. In parallel, the newly created Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will likely continue enforcing the cybersecurity disclosure rules, but perhaps less vigorously compared to recent years.
The White House will likely play a significant role in enforcing and shaping cybersecurity legislation in 2026. Executive Order 14306, signed in June, has amended several executive orders of previous administrations, shifting priorities to secure software development, AI safety, and protection against foreign cyber threats. — By Dr. Ilia Kolochenko, D.C. Bar CLE faculty member and CEO of ImmuniWeb®.
‘America First’ Agenda in Trade Policy
From the U.S. perspective, the biggest news in international law in 2025 was the imposition of tariffs on imports from various countries and the implications they pose for international commerce and cross-border transactions. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the president announced “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2 — dubbed “Liberation Day” — aimed at addressing the national security threat presented by the “large and persistent” annual trade deficits between the United States and its foreign trading partners.
In February, the president also invoked IEEPA to implement tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China in response to the declared national emergency related to the illicit entry of fentanyl into the United States from these countries. In August the president imposed a 40 percent tariff under IEEPA on certain Brazilian products to address threats to U.S. national security and foreign policy posed by the Brazilian government, as well as a 25 percent tariff on Indian-origin imports in response to India’s continued purchase of Russian oil.
Country-specific reciprocal tariff rates went into effect for most countries on August 7. Amidst the flurry of tariff actions, several countries sought to negotiate trade deals with the United States to reduce rates. The Trump administration has announced the development of “framework” agreements for negotiations with the European Union as well as with Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the United Kingdom.
Other tariff measures have been implemented pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which allows the U.S. Department of Commerce to conduct investigations into the impact certain imports may have on U.S. national security. The president has imposed tariffs on a variety of product groups, including a 50 percent tariff on copper, steel, and aluminum imports and a 25 percent tariff on most automobile and auto part imports. Several Section 232 investigations remain ongoing and may lead to increased tariffs on a variety of commodities, including commercial aircraft and jet engines, critical minerals and derivative products, semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, timber and lumber, robotics and industrial machinery, and personal protective equipment and medical equipment.
Furthermore, tariffs ranging from 7.5 percent to 100 percent on a wide variety of Chinese-origin imports remain in effect under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The Section 301 tariffs on Chinese products were initially imposed during the first Trump administration and kept in place under President Biden. The United States Trade Representative has also initiated a Section 301 investigation into Brazil’s acts, policies, and practices related to digital trade and electronic payment services, discriminatory tariffs, anti-corruption enforcement, IP protection, ethanol market access, and illegal deforestation. This investigation may lead to the implementation of additional tariffs on Brazilian goods.
The new tariffs have not gone unchallenged. Notably, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision on August 29, finding that President Trump exceeded his authority under IEEPA in implementing the reciprocal and fentanyl trafficking tariff actions. The administration promptly appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is set to hear oral arguments on November 5. In addition, challenges to the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods have lingered from the first Trump administration. On September 25, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in one of the leading Section 301 cases upholding the validity of these tariff actions.
Attorneys are encouraged to monitor the legal challenges to the various tariff actions imposed by President Trump, as the outcome of these cases may alter the application of certain tariff actions and even qualify some importers for refunds if certain actions are invalidated. — By Mary Ann McGrail, principal of the Law Office of M. A. McGrail, and Olga Torres, founder and managing member of Torres Trade Law.
Rise of AI, Authorship, and Fair Use Litigation
In the world of copyright law, courts are hearing numerous cases involving AI, pitting creators and rights-holders against AI developers. In the milestone case Thaler v. Perlmutter, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held in March that Creativity Machine, an AI system, cannot be the recognized author of a copyrighted work because the Copyright Act of 1976 requires all eligible work to be authored in the first instance by a human being. The court also rejected the plaintiff’s argument that under the Copyright Act’s work-made-for-hire provision, he could be deemed the author of the work at issue because Creativity Machine functions as his employee.
Legal battles over ownership have intensified, with authors and publishers suing AI companies for allegedly using their copyrighted works without permission to train AI models. In Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware ruled that ROSS infringed on Thomson Reuters’s copyrights by using legal headnotes from Westlaw, its legal research platform, to train ROSS’s AI legal research engine.
Conversely, in Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found that using purchased books for AI training constituted fair use, though issues related to unlicensed works remain unresolved. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Anthropic, holding that the company’s use of copyrighted materials to train its large language models constituted lawful and “quintessentially” transformative fair use. However, the creation of a general-purpose digital library using pirated materials failed fair-use scrutiny.
In patent law, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced a significant procedural overhaul for inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. Effective March 26, 2025, a bifurcated system separates decisions on discretionary denial from merit-based reviews, allowing a designated panel to evaluate non-merit factors before another panel addresses the petition’s merits. This framework emphasizes policy alignment, fairness, and efficiency in evaluating petitions.
In addition, the USPTO announced in July a major policy shift, stating that it will strictly enforce a previously loosely applied procedural rule requiring IPR petitions to “specify where each element of the claim is found in the prior art patents or printed publications relied upon.” This change may make it harder for challengers to invalidate patents through IPR proceedings. — By Zhiwei Hua, a D.C. Bar member whose practice at Concord & Sage PC focuses on intellectual property law and the cross-border e-commerce market
D.C. Criminal Law Reform — Under Congressional Shadow
Following congressional overturning of the sweeping Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, the District of Columbia has focused on more specific measures. In March, the District’s Second Chance Amendment Act of 2022 became effective, amending its outdated expungement and record-sealing code.
Further code updates included two notable changes to the District’s rebuttable presumption of pretrial detention. Under the Peace DC Omnibus Emergency Amendment Act of 2025, one update extended the temporary expansion of the presumption from July 2025 to December 2026. An update under the Secure DC Omnibus Amendment Act narrowed the scope of offenses triggering the presumption to exclude robbery absent physical injury, as well as second-degree burglary.
In July, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia filed a Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(j) letter in Benson v. United States, No. 23-CF-0514, notifying the D.C. Courts that DOJ would no longer defend D.C. Code § 7-2506.01 (which bans large-capacity ammunition feeder devices) against Second Amendment challenges. Further, DOJ noted that its position aligned with briefs to the Seventh Circuit in Barnett v. Raoul.
In September, Republican lawmakers introduced more than a dozen bills designed to amend the District of Columbia Home Rule Act and impose harsher criminal penalties. Among other key provisions, the proposed bills seek to lower the age — from 16 to 14 — to try youth offenders, repeal the Incarceration Reduction Act, give Congress the sole authority over sentencing guidelines, and give the president sole power in choosing the D.C. attorney general. The congressional push to reshape D.C. criminal law was swiftly condemned by D.C. Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Notable D.C. Court of Appeals opinions published this year include In re R.W., 334 A.3d 593, which reversed denial of the motion to suppress the finding that police officers did not have reasonable articulable suspicion for the defendant’s seizure, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In Riley v. United States, the Court of Appeals vacated the trial court’s partial denial of the appellant’s relief under the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA), finding that it conflicted with the finding in Doe v. United States that reliance on non-IRAA statutes/ factors was erroneous. — By Robin Earnest, a federal appellate attorney and founder of The Earnest Law Firm.
New Rules of Engagement in Lobbying
Lawyers licensed in Washington, D.C., who engage in federal lobbying walk a tightrope between legal advocacy and political influence. In the past few years, lawmakers, regulators, and federal prosecutors have scrutinized lawyer–lobbyists, who must navigate the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct as well as federal statutes like the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) and Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). At the federal level, the LDA is a baseline framework for lobbyist registration, reporting, and rules on gifts/travel. Effective January 1, 2025, the threshold for in-house lobbyists’ quarterly expenses rose from $14,000 to $16,000; for firms, the client income threshold rose from $3,000 to $3,500.
In December 2024, DOJ issued a long-awaited Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to update FARA regulations, changing exemptions and clarifying definitions relating to commercial and political influence activity. Of note, the proposed amendments better explain the circumstances in which the “legal representation exemption” will permit legal counsel to represent foreign principals without needing to register.
This aligns with two bills — the Lobbying Disclosure Improvement Act and the Disclosing Foreign Influence in Lobbying Act — that unanimously passed the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on July 30, 2025. The latter would require all LDA registrants to indicate whether they are registering under the act to satisfy their FARA obligation.
The FARA amendments followed high-profile cases in 2024. One involved lobbyist Barry Bennett and consultant Douglas Watts, who entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ in response to allegations that they failed to comply with FARA for lobbying performed on behalf of a foreign government. In another action, DOJ indicted former Congressman David Rivera under FARA and other statutes, alleging clandestine lobbying on behalf of a Venezuelan principal.
On February 5, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum instructing DOJ to resort to criminal enforcement for “alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors” and directing DOJ to enforce FARA through “civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance.”
While lobbying remains a meaningful practice path for D.C. attorneys, this space is crowded with heightened statutory mandates, evolving enforcement norms, and shifting public expectations. Between rising LDA thresholds, FARA regulatory reform, and aggressive DOJ enforcement, lawyer–lobbyists must proactively safeguard ethical integrity. — By Yuri Vanetik, founder and managing partner of Vanetik Law.
State of Human Rights and Global Peace
With major conflicts still raging around the globe, the focus on international human rights has been intense in 2025. Elisa Massimino, visiting professor at Georgetown Law and executive director of the school’s Human Rights Institute, says the biggest story in this area of law is “the erosion of the standards by the governments to abide by them and the lack of enforcement.”
In late August, the United States announced that it would not participate in the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review, in which all member states submit reports on their human rights records approximately every five years. The U.S. State Department’s annual “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,” issued in August 2025, was substantially shorter than in the previous year.
The enforced deportation of undocumented immigrants by the United States has raised constitutional protection questions. Additionally, the Trump administration has challenged the long legacy of birthright citizenship, a matter now before the courts.
On September 16, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory published a report finding that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. This determination may impact the International Court of Justice case stemming from an action brought by South Africa against Israel on December 29, 2023.
In mid-October, Israel and Hamas implemented the first phase of a peace deal brokered by the United States, facilitating a ceasefire, the release of all 20 surviving Israel hostages in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, and the restoration of humanitarian aid to Gaza. As of press date, key issues remain unresolved, including Hamas’s disarmament, Israel’s full withdrawal, and the future governance of Gaza.
Meanwhile, Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement in June 2025 to establish a special tribunal to prosecute those guilty of committing the crime of aggression against Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in 2022.
Sudan and Darfur also were the focus of international legal activity in 2025. The International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Sudanese militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region committed more than 20 years ago. In October 2025, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for urgent attention to ethnically driven attacks and atrocities in El Fasher as the Rapid Support Forces intensify efforts to take control of the long-besieged capital of Sudan’s North Darfur.
“The whole human rights system is based on the calculus after [World War II] that countries agreed the way to prevent another global conflagration would be for every country to ensure respect for human rights for people inside their borders. That’s why every state has an interest in how other states treat their people,” Massimino says. “When there is repression of dissent, and a crackdown on protest, when people are unable to express themselves through voting, that is a problem for every single person on the planet.” — By Richard Blaustein, a D.C. Bar member and freelance journalist covering the environment, science, and legal issues.
