The Ninth Circuit upheld the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Fishery's Hatchery Listing Policy for Pacific salmon and steelhead trout and held that the agency may distinguish between natural and hatchery-spawned fish when determining their level of protection under the Endange...

The Second Circuit held that potentially responsible parties (PRPs) who have not been subject to a civil action under §§106 or 107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) but who have remediated a contaminated site pursuant to a consent order e...

The Eighth Circuit held time barred environmental groups' claims that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act by allowing snowmobiling on and failing to set motorboat quotas for two lakes in northeastern Minnesota. Environmental groups alleged that the Act's mo...

A district court held that a seller of land is liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for response costs the purchaser incurred cleaning up groundwater contamination at one site but is not liable for remedial investigation costs the purchaser ...

A district court ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify and publish by May 4, 2009, a list of facilities required to demonstrate financially responsibility for hazardous waste cleanups. EPA argued that the lawsuit was time barred. The court, however, ruled that the contin...

The Sixth Circuit denied a petition for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision not to object to a power plant's air pollution permit. Clean Air Act (CAA) §505(b)(2) requires EPA to object to an air pollution permit if any person "demonstrates" to the Agency that t...

A district court ordered a company to pay a $1.5 million fine for Clean Water Act violations during the construction of a 60-mile natural gas pipeline and certain lateral pipelines in Coos and Douglas Counties, Oregon. Although the company's permit violations were numerous and occurred over the leng...

The D.C. Circuit remanded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM). EPA failed adequately to explain why, in view of the risks posed by short-term exposures and the evidence of morbidity resulting from long-ter...

The Tenth Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) site-specific federal implementation plan (FIP) for a coal-fired power plant located on the Navajo reservation in northwest New Mexico. The court granted EPA's motion for vol...

The Ninth Circuit held that post-judgment interest on the $507.5 million in punitive damages awarded to the plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case will run from the date the judgment was entered—September 12, 1996. Plaintiffs’ entitlement to punitive damages was "meaningfully ascertained"...