The U.S. Supreme Court overturned $2.5 billion in punitive damages imposed on an oil shipping company in connection with the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Clean Water Act's water pollution penalties do not preempt punitive damages awards in maritime spill cases. Nevertheless, the punitive damages awar...

The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) does not have an enforceable duty to promptly withdraw the threatened marbled murrelet from the protections of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) after its five-year review found that the species does not fit into one of the several ...

A district court denied the automobile industry's motion to modify the scope of an injunction prohibiting California or any of its political subdivisions from enforcing the state's vehicle-related greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations if and when a waiver of federal preemption under the Clean Air Act is ...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court judgment holding that the U.S. Forest Service complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) in connection with a salvage logging operation conducted in the aftermath of a ...

The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing as untimely a fishermen association's challenge to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries' fishery management plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico. The complaint was not time-barred ...

A district court set aside a biological opinion (BO) issued in conjunction with the Winter Motorized Recreation Plan for the Flathead National Forest. In establishing the environmental baseline from which it assessed the effects of the recreation plan on the grizzly bear, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife ...

A district court dismissed an aircraft manufacturer's contribution action against the United States for response costs it incurred cleaning up trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination at the Tri-County Airport site in Herington, Kansas. The manufacturer argued that the U.S. government released TCE into...

The D.C. Circuit denied a petition for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) 2006 national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants for the synthetic organic chemical manufacturing industry. Petitioners challenged EPA's residual risk rulemaking under the Clean Air Act (...

The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stormwater discharge rule that exempts from the Clean Water Act's (CWA's) permitting requirements discharges of sediment from oil and gas construction activities that contribute to violations of water quality standar...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing property owners' action to quiet title in its favor to all of the sand, gravel, and rock that is located on their real property. It is undisputed that sand, gravel, and rock can be taken from the soil and used for commercial purposes. Cons...