The Tenth Circuit dismissed an environmental group's citizen suit against an Oklahoma power company for CAA violations at a power plant. The group claimed the company modified a coal-fired boiler without first obtaining an emission-regulating permit as required by the CAA. But because the group file...

The Ninth Circuit held that the public disclosure bar of the False Claims Act did not bar an individual's qui tam lawsuit against his employer under the Act. The employer, an engineering company, entered into a contract with NOAA to design and build a Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS...

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition challenging the FAA's decision that no EIS was necessary to commence operating commercial passenger service at an industrial airport near Everett, Washington. The FAA prepared an EA, but chose not to prepare an EIS following its finding of no significant environme...

The Ninth Circuit dismissed an environmental group's appeal of a preliminary injunction that barred it from interfering with oil exploration activities in the Chukchi Sea. The group challenged the injunction on several jurisdictional bases, as well as on the merits. But the injunction has expired an...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to exclude approximately 8,300 acres of federal land that fall within recreational ski boundaries from the Colorado roadless rule. The Service issued the rule in 2012, adopting state-specific standards for the designation and management of t...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed environmental groups' lawsuit seeking to vacate an EPA rule that implements the CAA's new source review (NSR) permitting scheme in nonattainment areas. The groups filed suit after EPA issued an energy company a PSD permit to build a waste incinerator in Arecibo, Puerto Ric...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the dismissal of a community group's lawsuit challenging the construction of a streetcar storage and training facility and the installation of overhead wires along a 2.2-mile stretch of a new streetcar line in Washington, D.C. The groups claimed that legislation authorizing c...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision vacating FWS' designation of critical habitat in Alaska for the polar bear, a threatened species, and reinstated the designation. The designation encompasses sea ice, terrestrial denning, and barrier island habitat. Oil and gas associations, several ...

A district court denied a motion to amend its prior ruling vacating FWS' listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species under the ESA. FWS argued that the court should have remanded, rather than vacated, the rule. It claimed that there is a serious possibility that its decision to lis...

The D.C. Circuit upheld FWS' decision to withdraw its proposal to list as endangered the dunes sagebrush lizard in New Mexico and Texas. After FWS proposed to list the lizard, it received updated information about conservation efforts in the two states. Based on this information, which included a vo...