A district court dismissed as untimely Alaska's lawsuit challenging the 2001 roadless rule, which prohibits roadwork and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of national forest, including 14.7 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in Alaska. Alaska's cause of action accrued in...
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 ...
A district court held that genuine issues of material fact preclude a grant of summary judgment in a petroleum distributor's contribution claim against an oil company for costs incurred cleaning up hazardous substance contamination at a gas station and bulk petroleum storage plant formerly leased by...
A district court held that commercial fishing groups may go forward with their NEPA lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation in a case involving the Bureau's approval of eight water delivery contracts in California's Central Valley. The groups argued that the Bureau's EA failed to adequately consid...
The Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction prohibiting an environmental activist group from interfering with an oil company's outer continental shelf (OCS) exploration activities in the Arctic Ocean. The lower court's preliminary injunction barred the group from coming within specified distances of vess...
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...
An Iowa appellate court affirmed the dismissal of a minor's petition asking the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to adopt new rules regarding the emission of greenhouse gases in the state. She first argued that the state agency acted unreasonably in denying the proposed rule because Iowa's Inali...
The Fifth Circuit held that Transocean's primary and excess-liability insurers must cover BP's pollution-related liabilities deriving from April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Under Texas law, the umbrella insurance policy—not the indemnity provisions of Transocean's and BP's contract—con...
A West Virginia court reversed a decision by the state environmental quality board in which it remanded a NPDES permit for a mining company to the state environmental agency for further review and analysis. The board's decision not to defer to the state agency's interpretation of water quality stand...
A district court upheld a county ordinance prohibiting retail stores from providing plastic carryout bags and requiring them to charge customers 10 cents for each paper carryout bag provided. The paper carryout bag charge is not a tax under the California Constitution because the charge is payable a...