The court dismisses Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), Occcupational Safety and Health Administration Act (OSHA Act), and 42 U.S.C. §1983 claims filed against a school district by school employees who were exposed to unknown toxic fumes and suffered dama...

The court holds that Clean Water Act (CWA) §404 does not allow the filling of U.S. waters solely for waste disposal, and, therefore, enjoined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from issuing any further permits allowing the valley fill of overburden waste from mountaintop removal. The court first hold...

The Fifth Circuit stayed a preliminary injunction that barred a company from constructing a crude oil pipeline through the environmentally sensitive Atchafalaya Basin. An environmental group claimed that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers unlawfully issued a permit allowing the construction, and a low...

In a 259-page opinion, a federal claims court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for causing recurrent flooding along the Missouri River. Farmers, landowners, and business owners filed takings claims against the government, arguing that the Corps' management of the Missouri Ri...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the United States may pursue claims against New Mexico for violating the Rio Grande Compact, which Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas entered into in the 1930s to resolve disputes over water rights. Texas filed suit alleging that New Mexico was allowing its residents to...

A Pennsylvania appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court's decision that the owner of an oil and gas company should be liable for failing to plug 47 abandoned oil and gas wells located in Erie and Crawford Counties. The state environmental agency issued an administrative order requiring th...

The D.C. Circuit clarified an earlier ruling vacating portions of a 2015 rule that defined when certain hazardous materials were deemed discarded—as opposed to legitimately recycled—and therefore subject to EPA's oversight under RCRA. In 2017, the court upheld some aspects of the rule and vacate...

The court holds that a corporation is liable for discharging polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan from two of its three automotive manufacturing plants. The court had previously found in favor of the corporation in this Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensat...

The court holds that a petroleum company lacks standing to sue the U.S. Forest Service for not offering particular lands within the Lewis and Clark National Forest for oil and gas leasing. The court first holds that the Forest Service has discretion whether to authorize the leasing of any Forest Ser...

The court denies a gold mining company's motion to dismiss and motions for summary judgment in a Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit action that an environmental group brought against the company for violating CWA §303 by discharging pollutants without a national pollutant discharge elimination syst...