The Tenth Circuit held that a coal mining company was entitled to judicial review of a DOI decision after a lower court dismissed the suit. In 2013, the company was cited by DOI for a violation of SMCRA. In 2015, the mining company filed a notice of appeal and a petition for stay pending appeal with...

The Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that a coal company isn't liable for claims by property owners over water disposed of in a mine beneath their property because Virginia's statute of limitations prohibited the suit. The coal company undertook “dewatering” its active mine and disposi...

The Massachusetts Supreme Court held that a scientific consultant group hired to assess the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cannot proceed with a defamation suit against a pair of environmental advocates. The advocates, residents of the affected area, wrote an article that appeared in the...

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that upheld a Virginia uranium mining ban on non-federal lands. In the early 1980s, a uranium deposit was discovered in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, on land owned by a mineral company. The Virginia Assembly requested that the state Coal and Energ...

The Fourth Circuit held that a district court committed no reversible error in a case where an energy company chairman was convicted of conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws. The case involved an accident on April 5, 2010, at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, which ...

The Ninth Circuit held that BLM violated NEPA when it approved a proposed molybdenum mining operation near Eureka, Nevada. Environmental groups filed suit against BLM, challenging the agency's analysis of the project's cumulative air impacts and the baseline levels of certain air pollutants, and the...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling denying business owners’ motion to preliminary enjoin the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, from proceeding with construction of a rapid transit bus system due to alleged NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) violations. The business o...

The Federal Circuit affirmed in part and remanded in part a lower court decision dismissing a helium extraction company's breach of contract claims against the United States. In 1994, the parties entered a contract under which BLM gave the company the right to extract helium gas from roughly 21,000 ...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of environmental groups' lawsuit challenging the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's EIS for its updated land use plan. Applying a standard similar to the standard for evaluating an EIS under NEPA, the court held that the EIS and update adequately addressed the lo...

The D.C. Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, denied an environmental group's petition for review challenging FERC's approval of a proposed liquefied natural gas project in Texas. The group argued that FERC violated NEPA in its consideration of the projects’ indirect and cumulative effects. But as ...