The Ninth Circuit dismissed an environmental group's appeal of a preliminary injunction that barred it from interfering with oil exploration activities in the Chukchi Sea. The group challenged the injunction on several jurisdictional bases, as well as on the merits. But the injunction has expired an...
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld FERC's "demand-response" rule under which operators of wholesale electricity markets, in specified circumstances, must pay the same price to providers for conserving energy as to generators for producing it. During peak periods, electricity rates increase dramatically, ...
A Pennsylvania court upheld an environmental hearing board order dismissing a municipal authority's challenge to a gas drilling permit that the Department of Environmental Protection issued to an oil and gas exploration company. The authority argued that the permitted drilling will result in violati...
A New York appellate court upheld a lower court decision invalidating a water sales agreement that would have allowed a town to sell approximately one million gallons per day from its water supply to an energy company for drilling and hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania. Despite the town's conclusi...
A district court dismissed a lawsuit filed against the State Department in connection with two upgrade projects for a major oil sands pipeline that crosses the U.S-Canada border. One project would replace an existing pipeline segment, and the second would construct an interconnection between two exi...
The D.C. Circuit held that FERC violated the Federal Power Act (FPA) when it issued a preliminary permit for a hydroelectric project in Polk County, Iowa, to a private developer. The case involved FERC's interpretation of FPA §7(a), which grants preferential treatment to state and municipal applica...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that BLM complied with NEPA and FLPMA in allowing the construction of a utility-scale wind project in California's Sonoran Desert. BLM sufficiently evaluated and disclosed the environmental impacts of the wind energy facility project under NEPA. Envi...
A district court, on motions for reconsideration and clarification of a prior remand order, vacated and remanded DOI's record of decision (ROD), EIS, and biological opinion (BiOp) concerning a large wind energy project in Nevada. In the prior remand court, the court held that DOI failed to fully exp...
A Texas appellate court upheld a lower court decision dismissing a family's nuisance and negligence claims against two oil companies for alleged health and property damage stemming from hydraulic fracturing operations near their home. To overcome the defendant companies' no-evidence summary judgment...
A district court struck down portions of a town ordinance, deemed a "Community Bill of Rights," that sought to ban the disposal of waste materials from oil and gas extraction within its borders. The town is a "second class township" under state law. As such, it is subject to Pennsylvania's Second Cl...