The U.S. Supreme Court held that environmental groups lack standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations exempting certain land management activities from the agency's review process absent a live dispute over the concrete application of those regulations. The regulations exempt small fire-r...

The Ninth Circuit dismissed as unripe property owner's CERCLA and RCRA claims against the former owners for the costs of removing lead and other pollutants deposited on the land, which had been used as a shooting range. The owner's asserted cleanup costs are speculative and were calculated without r...

The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing a neighborhood association's APA action seeking to compel EPA's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to act on their complaint that a city failed to properly use EPA funds to address lingering environmental problems in low-income and ...

The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded a district court decision dismissing a Philippine island's action claiming that an American company polluted its waters. According to the complaint, Placer Dome severely polluted the lands and waters of Marinduque for some 30 years, caused two cataclysmic envi...

The court holds that the doctrine of res judicata does not bar nuclear utilities' claims that they were improperly charged by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for decontamination and decommissioning costs in its contracts for enriched uranium during the time period after the Energy Policy Act ena...

The court dismisses as unripe a developer's civil rights action against a city, a state environmental protection agency, agency employees, and a citizen group that allegedly opposed the developer's construction of a residential subdivision within the city's watershed. The court first holds that the ...

The court holds that a Native American council and an environmental group lack standing under the Federal Power Act (FPA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to challenge a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order authorizing a Canadian power generator to sell power in the Unit...

The court holds that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' denial of landowners' Clean Water Act §404 permit application effected a permanent taking of their property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The court first holds that the landowners' claim is ripe. Even if more information were offered by ...

The court vacates and remands a district court's order issued after an Endangered Species Act case brought by an environmental group against a lumber company had been declared moot. The district court granted the lumber company's motion to dismiss the case as moot but then issued an opinion outlinin...

The court grants Illinois' request to remand to state court its case against the U.S. Department of the Army (Army) for improperly releasing pollutants from its Joliet Army Ammunition Plant into waste streams and outfalls that ultimately ended up in Prairie Creek, a tributary of the Kankakee River. ...