A California appellate court affirmed dismissal of a challenge to the South Coast Air Quality Management District's determination that an oil refinery project would reduce air pollution. An environmental group first argued the environmental impact report (EIR) was inadequate under the California Env...

In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service's decision not to prepare an EIS for a tree-thinning project in Mount Hood National Forest was arbitrary and capricious. A district court concluded that the Service's decision was lawful and thus granted summary judgment ...

A district court denied summary judgment to environmental groups in a challenge to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of permits for construction of a crude oil pipeline across the Atchafalaya Basin. The groups argued that the Corps violated NEPA by failing to take a hard look at the risk of...

A district court denied summary judgment to an environmental group in a challenge to the USDA Farm Service Agency's (FSA's) EA for a loan guarantee to construct and operate a poultry concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Maryland. The group first argued that FSA violated NEPA by improperly...

A district court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must prepare an EIS for the Dakota Access Pipeline that runs from North Dakota to Illinois. Native American tribes argued that the Corps failed to comply with a previous court decision requiring it to adequately consider whether the pipelin...

A district court upheld BLM's rule that repealed a 2015 rule regulating hydraulic fracturing operations on federal and tribal lands. California argued that BLM's rationale that the 2015 rule was duplicative of state and tribal regulations was negated by the agency itself when considering the same ev...

A district court granted in part and denied in part a motion for summary judgment in a challenge to the Forest Service's and BLM's authorizations of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Wayne National Forest. Environmental groups argued the agencies violated NEPA by failing to take a "hard look" at...

A district court upheld DOI's renewal of two mineral leases that had previously been rejected for a copper-nickel mine in Superior National Forest. Businesses and environmental groups argued that DOI's authority to reconsider its decision to renew was limited to ministerial or inadvertent errors, an...

A district court dismissed constitutional challenges to Colorado's forced pooling statute, under which property owners were required to allow oil and gas companies to extract their minerals. A group of property owners argued the statute violated the First Amendment by requiring non-consenting owners...

A district court granted a pipeline company's motion for partial summary judgment in a lawsuit concerning a Virginia county board's denial of the company's request to traverse floodplains to construct an interstate natural gas pipeline. The company argued that it was not obligated to comply with the...