A Minnesota appellate court affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of a county's zoning ordinance that bans all industrial-mineral mining, including silica-sand mining. A silica-sand mining company argued that the ordinance discriminated against its business. But the lower court disagreed, concludin...

The D.C. Circuit granted in part and denied in part an environmental group's motion for summary judgment challenging DOJ's "Glomar response" refusing to confirm or deny the existence of the records requested. The group argued that the agency was not permitted to give this response to the group's FOI...

A district court denied BLM's motion to transfer a lawsuit over BLM's hydraulic fracturing rule from California to Wyoming. The agency argued that moving the lawsuit to Wyoming would avoid potentially conflicting legal precedents between the California and Wyoming district courts and that the Distri...

The Second Circuit vacated a rule published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indefinitely delaying a previously published rule that increased civil penalties for noncompliance with Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. Environmental groups argued that the agency violated pro...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by an environmental group challenging FERC's funding structure. The group argued that the agency's funding structure created structural bias by incentivizing the agency to approve pipelines in order to seek larger appropriations from Congres...

The D.C. Circuit denied a newspaper reporter's motion for partial summary judgment to require EPA to publish calendar entries of the EPA Administrator's activities. The reporter argued that the Agency violated FOIA's reading-room provision by failing to make the Administrator's detailed calendar ava...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court decision rejecting environmental groups' claim that Export-Import Bank violated the ESA and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The groups argued that the agency failed to follow proper procedures set forth in the ESA and NHPA before approving financ...

The Seventh Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction barring a global dairy conglomerate from making any claims in its advertisements that cheese from cows treated with recombinant bovine somato-tropin (rbST), an artificial growth hormone, is dangerous and unhealthy. The conglomerate launched an adve...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of shareholders' derivative action against a solar panel company for failing to disclose in financial statements and press releases the existence of manufacturing and design defects. The shareholders alleged that the officers and directors of the company breach...

The Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying three Canadian solar manufacturers' and a U.S. importer's motion for preliminary injunction to bar the enforcement of presidentially imposed tariffs on solar products. The manufacturers and importer argued that imposition of a 30% tariff on...