The D.C. Circuit held that an American corporation owned by Chinese nationals was deprived of its constitutionally protected property interests without due process of law when President Obama issued an order blocking on national security grounds the corporation's windfarm project located near a U.S....

A district court held that a doctor lacks standing to challenge a Pennsylvania law that prohibits doctors from disclosing the mixture of chemical fluids used during hydraulic fracturing when treating patients for chemical exposure. Doctors have a professional and ethical obligation to communicate cr...

New York's highest court held that local governments may ban oil and gas production activities, including hydraulic fracturing, through the adoption of local zoning laws. The case arose after two towns enacted zoning laws banning hydraulic fracturing within their jurisdictions. A private gas company...

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld ballot initiatives that would expand local governments' authority to enact laws regulating oil and gas development that are more restrictive than state law. The initiatives contain just one subject, and the titles fairly reflect the purpose of the initiatives and ar...

The Supreme Court of Utah dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging the state's issuance of a discharge permit for a tar sands bitumen-extraction project in the Uintah Basin. The original discharge permit was granted by the Utah Division of Water Quality (DWQ) in 2008. In 2011, the Utah...

The Supreme Court of Texas held that an oil and gas company may use a road on landowner's property to access its underground mineral rights. The company held an interest oil and gas rights under the landowners' property in addition to several adjoining tracts. In 2000, it pooled the tracts, thereby ...

The Supreme Court of Alaska upheld a ballot initiative that would require legislative approval of the any new large-scale metallic sulfide mining operation—the Pebble Mine gold and copper project—in the Bristol Bay watershed. Despite mining associations' arguments to the contrary, the "Bristol B...

A district court held that an environmental group lacked standing to challenge a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit issued to an oil company to fill certain wetlands in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska for a future drill site. The group's members have not demonstrated the requisite injury in...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's citizen suit in which it alleged a power company was attempting to construct a major modification of its coal-fired power plant in Illinois without a PSD permit in violation of the CAA. The project will physically replace an existing boiler with a ...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that CERCLA §309 does not preempt a state's statute of repose. The case arose after property owners filed suit against a manufacturing company for alleged groundwater contamination stemming from chemicals stored on property the company sold 24 years ago. The company argu...