The Second Circuit vacated a decision by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation denying a state water quality certification for construction of a natural gas pipeline through northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. The pipeline company argued that the Department's denial...

The D.C. Circuit vacated a FERC decision concerning a licensee's decommissioning plan with reviewing states for hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. A Native American tribe challenged FERC's determination that California and Oregon had not waived their water quality certification authority un...

A state appellate court reversed a judgment against a coastal use permit issued by Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources for construction of an oil pipeline. The Department argued that the lower court erred in not deferring to the Department's finding that its coastal use permit (CUP) guidelin...

A district court dismissed a Native American tribe's lawsuit challenging a proposed sulfide mine along the banks of the Menominee River, which forms the border between Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The tribe argued, pursuant to the Act's citizen suit provision, that EPA and the U.S. Army...

In an unpublished opinion, a state appellate court affirmed a lower court's ruling that a Wisconsin landowner violated state law by discharging fill material into a wetland on his property. The lower court found that the landowner had filled waters of the state without obtaining a permit, in violati...

The Fourth Circuit vacated the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' verification that construction of a natural gas pipeline could proceed in West Virginia under the terms and conditions of CWA Nationwide Permit (NWP) 12. Environmental groups argued that the Corps improperly incorporated the state's condit...

A district court vacated nationwide the Applicability Date Rule, which suspended the effect of the Clean Water Rule until February 2020 and required agencies in the interim to apply the pre-Clean Water Rule definition of "waters of the United States." Environmental groups argued that EPA and the U.S...

A district court granted in part and denied in part environmental groups' motion for summary judgment relating to a proposal to permit hydraulic fracturing operations off the coast of California. The groups argued that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Safety and Environmen...

A district court dismissed a challenge to EPA's amendment to the 2015 Effluent Limitations Guidelines Rule, which established new limits and standards for various types of waste streams discharged by steam electric power plants. Environmental groups argued that the amendment violated the ESA and NEP...

A district court ordered EPA to issue a temperature total maximum daily load (TMDL) under the CWA for the Columbia and Snake Rivers, which are native habitat for endangered and threatened salmon and steelhead populations. An environmental group argued that the Agency failed to issue a TMDL for the r...