The Ninth Circuit reversed a district court's partial grant of summary judgment for cattle ranchers in a challenge to the Forest Service's decision to apply 1995 riparian mitigation measures to an allotment in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The ranchers argued that the Service's decision ...

A district court dismissed a RCRA citizen suit brought against present and former owners of chemical plants for allegedly releasing radioactive slag deposited on landowners' properties in New York. The landowners sought injunctive relief under RCRA, including ordering the plant owners to evaluate ea...

A district court adopted a magistrate judge's recommendation and granted an environmental group's motion for partial summary judgment in a lawsuit concerning particulate matter emissions violations at an oil refinery in Indiana. The group brought a citizen suit under the CAA, arguing that the refine...

A magistrate judge dismissed a lawsuit concerning ownership of a grazing allotment in the Apache National Forest. Ranchers argued the allotment was privately owned and thus relieved them of any obligation to obtain a cattle grazing permit from the Forest Service or to comply with the permit's requir...

The D.C. Circuit denied, 2-1, New Jersey's challenge to a rule promulgated by EPA on remand concerning the CAA's new source review (NSR) program. The state argued that EPA inadequately considered concerns stemming from the predictive and subjective nature of projected emissions calculations and adop...

A district court denied an Apache group's motion to preliminarily enjoin the exchange of sacred land in Tonto National Forest to two foreign mining companies for mineral exploration. The group argued the land was held in trust by the U.S. government for the Western Apaches through an 1852 treaty, an...

The D.C. Circuit vacated three provisions of EPA's 2018 rule implementing NAAQS for ozone. Environmental groups challenged four provisions of the rule: the interprecursor trading program, a provision allowing states to demonstrate compliance with the CAA's "reasonable further progress" milestone req...

The D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's Affordable Clean Energy Rule that repealed and replaced the Clean Power Plan as a means of regulating power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. A group of public health petitioners sought review of the rule's conclusion that §7411 of the CAA only permitted emission redu...

The Fifth Circuit denied petitions to review EPA's 2018 redesignation of Bexar County, Texas, from attainment to nonattainment and designation of three neighboring counties as attainment/unclassifiable for 2015 ozone NAAQS. Texas argued EPA only had authority to change the state's recommended design...

The Eighth Circuit affirmed, 2-1, a ruling in favor of a mining company in a challenge to the company's failure to obtain a CAA construction permit for a mine in rural North Dakota. The owners of an adjacent ranch argued that the company failed to obtain the proper permit under the CAA and failed to...