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 D.C. Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to exclude approximately 8,300 acres of federal land that fall within recreational ski boundaries from the Colorado roadless rule. The Service issued the rule in 2012, adopting state-specific standards for the designation and management of t...

An Illinois appellate court held that the Illinois Pollution Control Board erred when it upheld the state environmental agency's decision to reissue NPDES permits for three large water reclamation plants in the Chicago area. Petitioners argued that the permits fail to include conditions ensuring tha...

A district court, on motions for summary judgment, dismissed all but one of a property owner's environmental, waste, and breach of lease claims against various manufacturing companies that leased the site. The owner has been leasing the property since 1972, but it has largely been an absentee landlo...

The Ninth Circuit held that EPA did not act arbitrarily and capriciously when it disapproved in part Arizona's regional haze SIP and issued a replacement federal implementation plan (FIP) in place of the disapproved SIP elements. First, EPA did not act arbitrarily and capriciously when it disapprove...

The Fifth Circuit held that a mass action lawsuit in Louisiana concerning personal injury and property damages due to alleged contamination exposure may not be removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). The plaintiffs filed an amended petition that substituted deceased plai...

West Virginia's highest court held that individuals' lawsuit against a power company for injuries they allegedly incurred due to their exposure to coal combustion waste may go forward in the West Virginia courts even though the vast majority of plaintiffs live outside the state. Of the 77 named plai...

The Eleventh Circuit held that a developer is entitled to a charitable deduction on its 2006 tax return for granting a conservation easement on an 82-acre parcel of property that contained a bald eagle nest. The developer valued the parcel at $25.2 million on the assumption that the property's highe...

The Washington Supreme Court held that a local initiative to create a "Community Bill of Rights" which, among other things, would give the Spokane River its own water rights, including the rights to sustainable recharge, sufficient flows to support native fish, and clean water, may not be placed on ...

The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing a coastal property owner's lawsuit against an oil company for alleged trespassing and property damage stemming from the company's response actions following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. After the spill, h...