On remand, a district court awarded attorney fees to plaintiff, who prevailed on one Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) claim, despite the fact that plaintiff failed to prevail under several other claims. Attorney fees are ordinarily awarded to prevailing RCRA parties absent a strong show...

A district court dismissed, without prejudice, a ranch owner's claims that mining companies are liable under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Clean Water Act for releasing and discharging solid and hazardous wastes into Willow Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande. CERCLA §1...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed an energy company's petitions for review seeking declarations that Massachusetts and Rhode Island waived their rights to deny certification of a proposed dredge and fill operation under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The company applied for certification from the states' envir...

The Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision declining to impose a monetary penalty against an insecticide manufacturer for Clean Air Act (CAA) violations. A competitor company filed a citizen suit against the manufacturer for manufacturing, selling, and distributing an insecticide...

A district court granted partial summary judgment in support of an environmental group's claim that a university’s coal-fired power plant was subject to the prevention of significant deterioration requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and was therefore required to obtain a preconstruction permit...

The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) its recent rule that set, inter alia, corporate average fuel economy standards for light-duty trucks, including many sport utility v ehicles (SUVs) and other vehicles. The petition of public interes...

A federal district court ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) decision not to list the greater sage-grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was arbitrary and capricious and ordered the agency to reconsider the petition. Where the FWS excludes information provided by expert con...

The Ninth Circuit vacated a temporary injunction halting work on a Bureau of Reclamation project to line an unlined portion of the All-American Canal with concrete. The All-American Canal is one of the world’s largest irrigation canals, carrying water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley...

A district court denied an environmental group's motion for attorney fees and costs stemming from an underlying case involving an incidental take permit's (ITP's) impact on three species of butterfly. Below, the parties settled their claims. Pursuant to the consent judgment, the U.S. Fish and Wildli...

The court upheld an individual's conviction for Clean Water Act (CWA) violations stemming from the discharge of untreated liquid industrial wastes directly into a public sewer system. Although a jury acquitted him of personally committing the acts of discharging the waste into the public sewer syste...