A district court held that BLM violated NEPA when it sold four oil and gas leases on approximately 2,700 acres of federal land in Monterey and Fresno counties without considering impacts from hydraulic fracturing. The leases are located in California's Monterey Shale Formation, which is estimated to...

The Ninth Circuit reversed in part and affirmed in part lower court orders in cases arising out of the energy crisis of 2000-2002 that were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation proceeding. Plaintiffs—retail buyers of natural gas—alleged that defendants—natural gas traders—manipulated...

A district court held that individual ingredients of hydraulic fracturing formulas are trade secrets and do not need to be publicly disclosed. The Wyoming Public Records Act does not define trade secrets, but the Wyoming oil and gas commission's policy for evaluating trade secrets is reasonable and ...

The Ninth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit challenging a Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) directive that prevents Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from buying mortgages on properties encumbered by liens made under property-assessed clean energy (PACE) programs, which finance environmental improvements on ...

Maine's highest court vacated a state permit authorizing the construction of a wind turbine project on Saddleback Mountain. Twenty-one days before the state environmental agency approved the permit, the state's environmental board adopted an amendment that, among other changes, lowered the nighttime...

A district court upheld BLM's approval of a record of decision (ROD) and its grant of a right of way (ROW) allowing the construction of a utility-scale wind project in California's Sonoran Desert. Conservation groups challenged BLM's actions under NEPA and FLPMA. But BLM's decision to grant the ROW ...

A district court upheld BLM's approval of a record of decision (ROD) allowing the construction of 112 wind turbines in an area that contains cultural and biological significance to a Native American tribe. BLM's decision to approve the ROD was reasonable as it considered all relevant factors and pro...

The D.C. Circuit held that NRC's transfer of authority to New Jersey over nuclear materials within the state was arbitrary and capricious. The NRC may transfer regulatory authority over classes of nuclear materials located within a state to the government of that state. But here, the agency failed t...

The D.C. Circuit vacated and remanded a DOE rule requiring decorative fireplaces to meet certain energy efficiency standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The rule defined "vented hearth heater" to include both decorative fireplaces and fireplace heaters, thereby subjecting both to t...

The Fifth Circuit held that DOI did not violate a district court order preliminarily enjoining enforcement of a drilling moratorium following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico by issuing a second drilling ban. Shortly after the spill, at the president's direction, DOI prohibi...