The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit brought by environmental advocates alleging that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to fulfill its mandate to review effluent guidelines and limitations in a timely manner and in acco...

The Ninth Circuit preliminarily enjoined three logging projects permitted by the U.S. Forest Service in the Sierra Nevada National Forest. The Forest Service permitted the timber sales so that it could raise funds to carry on its fire prevention duties. While the Forest Service is clearly authorized...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' Clean Air Act citizen suit challenging the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Nemacolin, Pennsylvania. The court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the groups' claims. The groups argued that the defendant company does not have a valid pre...

The Third Circuit held that a district court retained subject matter jurisdiction over a company's Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §113(f)(1) contribution claim despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Cooper Industries v. Aviall Services, Inc....

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a lower court's grant of summary judgment, albeit for different reasons, in favor of the U.S. government on a property owner's citizen suit concerning the U.S. Air Force's use of property as a landfill during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The lower court granted summary ju...

A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service's environmental assessment (EA) for a logging project in the Olympic National Forest violated the National Environmental Policy Act. In 1994, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Forest Service issued a record of decision for the Northwest Fo...

A district court ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review and, if necessary, revise the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for carbon monoxide (CO) by May 13, 2011. The parties agreed that EPA missed the Clean Air Act's deadline to review the CO standard but disag...

The Fourth Circuit upheld the dismissal of an environmental group's Clean Water Act (CWA) action against county commissioners for allowing effluent to be discharged from a wastewater treatment plant into a stream. The group argued that the temperature of the discharged effluent at times exceeds the ...

The Ninth Circuit, in an amended opinion, upheld a lower court decision rejecting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries' 2004 biological opinion (BO) addressing the effects of the proposed operation of federal Columbia River Power System dams and facilities on salmon and stee...

The Second Circuit upheld the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection's denial of an energy company's request for a state water quality permit necessary to build a natural gas pipeline across the Long Island Sound. Record evidence supports the agency's finding that various techniques to b...