The court holds that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) fulfilled its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in approving revisions to a municipal airport's layout plan. In preparing its environmental assessment (EA) for the p...

The court reverses the acquittal of an individual who was convicted for negligently discharging pollutants into the Colorado River in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The lower court ruled as a matter of law that an individual is not guilty of negligently discharging a pollutant unless he kno...

The court holds that a Wisconsin state statute that forbids a city or county to regulate pesticides does not preempt a local ordinance forbidding the sale or use of phosphorous-containing fertilizers. Producers and suppliers of "weed and feed" lawn care products, which contain both an herbicide and ...

The court holds that §407 of the Flathead and Kootenai National Forest Rehabilitation Act does not violate the separation-of-powers doctrine. Under §407, timber sales can be implemented as long as each project area retains 10% designated old growth below 5,500 feet. Nothing in §407 di...

The court upholds a lower court decision finding a private water company liable for violating public health and safety regulations under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and ordering the divestiture of all but the largest of the company's water system as a penalty for those violations. The distric...

A court holds that a refinery is liable under the Clean Air Act for violating benzene and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions limits set forth in its permits and for violating new source performance standards (NSPS) that apply to its flares. Citizen groups demonstrated that the refinery's benzene emissio...

The court holds that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) properly determined that it has jurisdiction over wetlands adjacent to waters of the United States. A landowner argued that in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. U.S. A...

A court dismisses environmental groups' challenges to three National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries Service) decisions relating to the treatment of sea turtles under a fishery management plan (FMP) for the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Pe...

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in placing conditions on owners' access to their patented mining claims within the Kootenai National Forest in Montana. The owners claimed that the Forest Service violated the APA and the Quiet Title Act whe...

A court remands to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service a 2004 biological opinion (BO) prepared for proposed operations of the Federal Columbia River Power System. The remand order was issued in response to an earlier decision in which the court found...