The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's decision to modify the criteria or lower the threshold by which the Agency determined whether to grant small refineries an exemption from the CAA's Renewable Fuel Program. An industry group argued that the increase in the number of exemptions granted in 2016 and 2017 co...

A district court denied NMFS’ motion to stay a lawsuit concerning the effects of lobster fishing on the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The agency requested a stay pending its promulgation of two conservation measures—a new biological opinion for the American lobster fishery and a regulat...

A district court enjoined a NMFS rule that opened two areas of previously protected North Atlantic right whale habitat off the New England coast to gillnet fishing. An environmental group argued that the Sustainable Fisheries Division (SFD) of NMFS failed to consult with the agency’s Protected Res...

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed a district court decision upholding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of four CWA §404 permits to a fertilizer manufacturer engaged in phosphate mining in Florida. The district court found nothing arbitrary or capricious about the Corps’ determination that p...

In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and remanded in part a district court order that lifted an injunction on a logging project in the Kootenai National Forest. Environmental groups sought to enjoin the project again, arguing that the Forest Service's analysis of the project...

A district court granted in part a motion to stay its previous order requiring an electric utility company to obtain a PSD permit to address CAA violations at its coal-fired power plant in Festus, Missouri, and to install air pollution control technology at a neighboring plant in Labadie, Missouri. ...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's decision to reconsider greenhouse gas emission standards for model year 2022-2025 vehicles. States and environmental groups argued that EPA violated procedural and substantive requirements imposed by the CAA and that the decision was arbitrary and capricious. The Agency...

A district court denied summary judgment in a lawsuit concerning potential harms to local trout populations from a proposed copper and silver mine in Montana. Environmental groups and a Native American tribe argued that FWS violated the ESA by using a habitat surrogate to establish the mine's author...

The Fourth Circuit granted a motion to stay FWS' issuance of a biological opinion and incidental take statement for a proposed 300-mile natural gas pipeline running through Virginia and West Virginia, and to hold in abeyance litigation concerning authorization for the pipeline in order to allow FWS ...

A district court preliminarily enjoined BLM from implementing its 2019 amendments to plans for oil and gas permitting and licensing on greater sage-grouse habitat in seven states. Environmental groups argued that the six EISs that BLM issued to amend the plans violated NEPA by failing to consider re...