A district court ordered the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to repeal 40 C.F.R. §122.3(a), which exempts ballast water from national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permitting requirements. The Clean Water Act directly states that EPA must form NPDES permit requiremen...

The D.C. Circuit held that §116 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) creates no continuing appropriation from the Nuclear Waste Fund to Nevada for nuclear waste disposal activities. The state asked the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to fund its participation in a Nuclear Regulatory Commissio...

The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Alabama's and Florida's challenge to a settlement agreement between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Georgia, various state and municipal water authorities, and a nonprofit utility association concerning water rights associated with the Buford Dam, located...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that the United States holds ownership rights to the submerged lands off the shores of the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Because the covenant establishing the commonwealth's political union with the United States places sovereignty an...

A district court granted a city's motion for summary judgment on landowners' counterclaims against it in a condemnation proceeding involving a piece of private property. After the property's value was assessed, the city deposited the award into a special account and the landowners then withdrew the ...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court's injunction under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) requiring a company to clean up a chromium-contaminated site along the Hackensack River in New Jersey. The company conceded that it is legally responsible for the site and that chromium is b...

The Fifth Circuit upheld the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission's final order against an individual, who allowed workers to be exposed to asbestos during a building renovation project, for various violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) and associated safety and ...

The D.C. Circuit granted a petition for review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) approval of a regional alternative plan under the annex rule, which allows states to reduce regional haze by alternate means, including emissions trading programs, so long as the alternative would im...

The First Circuit upheld the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (the Corps') issuance of a navigability permit under §10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act (RHA) for the construction and maintenance of a data tower on the outer continental shelf (OCS) in Nantucket Sound. The Corps had jurisdiction to iss...

The court holds that water that has left its natural state and then is subjected to a man-made control constitutes an "addition" upon its return to the same navigable waterway. The operator of a dam filed suit against a state agency after it certified the dam with conditions. The operator argued tha...