A district court ordered a pipeline company and Native American tribe to submit a joint proposal on how to prevent a "catastrophic rupture" of a crude oil and natural gas pipeline running through the tribe's reservation in northern Wisconsin. The tribe initially brought public nuisance and trespass ...

A district court granted a federal contractor's motion for partial summary judgment in a CERCLA liability suit brought by the state of New Mexico and a Native American reservation concerning Gold King Mine's release of millions of gallons of contaminated water into nearby rivers in 2015. The contrac...

A district court granted DOD's motion to dismiss a challenge to its decision to halt fence construction along the U.S.-Mexico border in response to President Biden's proclamation declaring an end to the national border emergency. A corporation that owns land adjacent to the fence argued that DOD's d...

A district court denied a state prison's motion for partial summary judgment in a CWA citizen suit brought by a California county. The prison argued the county did not have statutory standing to sue under the CWA because the Act's definition of "citizen" did not include counties. The court concluded...

In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the U.S. government in a CERCLA liability lawsuit, requiring oil companies to reimburse approximately $50 million of EPA's environmental cleanup costs at a Superfund site in California. The government had sought reimbursement...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a religious group's challenge to FERC's approval of a natural gas pipeline along land owned by the group. The group argued that the use of its land to facilitate extraction, transportation, and use of fossil fuels violated its religious beliefs...

In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Forest Service in a challenge to its planned road construction project near Mount St. Helens to address the threat of a nearby lake's potential breach. Environmental groups argued the project violated NEPA and the Nationa...

A district court denied summary judgment for environmental and tribal groups in a challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to issue permits under the CWA and the Rivers and Harbors Act for a project to replace sections of an oil pipeline in Minnesota. The groups argued the Corps' decision ...

A district court granted summary judgment for an oil and gas company in a decades-long suit concerning the company's oil lease on land sacred to the Blackfeet Nation in Lewis and Clark National Forest. On the latest remand from the appellate court, the company challenged the Secretary of DOI's 2016 ...

A district court vacated two rights-of-way that BLM issued to a company in 2020 to transport water through an existing gas pipeline across federal lands. Environmental groups sought vacatur, arguing the rights-of-way violated FLPMA, NEPA, and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). BLM agreed...