A district court held that a Mississippi landowner is not entitled to an injunction to stop alleged contamination from oil and gas production activities on his property. The landowner's property is subject to certain mineral leases, rights of way, and surface agreements allowing a company access to ...

The Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision, decided that the owners of a family cottage were not entitled to compensation over development regulations that bar the sale of the family's adjacent lot. The family wanted to sell the lot to finance an upgrade to their cottage, and argued that St. Croix County,...

The Ninth Circuit held that FWS and the Forest Service did not violate the National Forest Management Act when they approved the thinning of trees and undergrowth from portions of the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The case involved a Revised Recovery Plan that specified guidelines for protection o...

A district court found that the National Park Service (NPS) took a “hard look” at environmental impacts when it approved an oil and gas company's seismic survey in a Florida nature preserve. The oil and gas company requested that NPS allow it to conduct seismic tests in the Big Cypress National ...

The D.C. Circuit ruled that a trade association composed of lumber companies had standing to challenge an FWS designation of critical habitat for the northern spotted owl on federal land in California, Oregon, and Washington. In 2012, FWS issued a final rule designating 9.5 million acres of federal ...

A district court denied native tribes' request for injunctive relief to stop the Dakota Access oil pipeline planned to run under Lake Oahe, due to laches and their unlikelihood of success on the merits. The federal government granted easements to an oil company to build a pipeline through the native...

The Eleventh Circuit held that the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA's) approval of a new bridge in Port St. Lucie, Florida, was not arbitrary or capricious despite claims by environmental groups. The groups claimed that FHWA abused its discretion in not selecting their proffered alternative pa...

The Fourth Circuit vacated for mootness a district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of conservation groups challenging the construction of a 22-mile toll road in Gaston County, North Carolina. The conservationists challenged the environmental analysis conducted by the state transportation ...

The Second Circuit upheld the federal government's 2008 decision to take approximately 13,000 acres of land in central New York into trust on behalf of the Oneida Indian Nation of New York. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 authorizes the federal government to take land into trust on behalf of I...

The Federal Circuit affirmed in part and remanded in part a lower court decision dismissing a helium extraction company's breach of contract claims against the United States. In 1994, the parties entered a contract under which BLM gave the company the right to extract helium gas from roughly 21,000 ...