The Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of landowners' lawsuit challenging an EPA compliance order requiring them to remove fill material from their property and to restore the parcel to its original condition. The order alleged that the parcel is a wetland subject to the CWA and that the landowner...

The Fifth Circuit held that a construction company that, during an excavation, failed to investigate what it hit in a pipeline corridor and rectify any damage, is not liable as an arranger under CERCLA or the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act. The excavation work took place in 1979, but the owner of th...

A district court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improperly extended its jurisdiction under the CWA by enacting new legislative rules related to prior converted croplands without allowing the required public notice-and-comment period under the APA. A power company that operates its facili...

The Sixth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service failed to comply with NEPA and several of its own regulations in its 2006 management plan for the Huron-Manistee National Forests in northern Michigan. The Service's estimates of snowmobile and cross-country visitors to the forests are arbitrary. A...

A district court dismisses a property owner's CWA citizen suit against his neighbor for grading an easement area that contains wetlands. A CWA citizens suit may not be maintained if it only involves past violations of the CWA. Here, there is no evidence of any ongoing violation--either continuous or...

A district court denied California's motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) regulations under the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The regulations focus on the "carbon intensity" of fuels to estimate emissions related to a fuel's lifecycle. In respon...

A district court dismissed, with leave to amend, an insurer's CERCLA action against companies that sought recovery of costs it incurred on behalf of one of its insureds. The insurer's allegations failed to state a claim under CERCLA §107(a). The allegations, among other things, failed to show that ...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the constitutionality of EPA's authority under CERCLA to issue unilateral administrative orders (UAOs) directing companies and others to clean up hazardous waste for which they are responsible. A company argued that the statute, as well as the way in which EPA administers it,...

A district court dismissed various parties' NEPA and ESA claims against the FWS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in connection with operations at the southernmost dam in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin system. The FWS' biological opinion contained incidental take statements for ...

A district court granted the motion of two non-settling PRPs to intervene to challenge a proposed consent decree, which was lodged by EPA to resolve CERCLA liability of a settling PRP, on the grounds that the nonsettling PRPs have a significantly protectable interest to support intervention as a rig...