The D.C. Circuit remanded to FERC for further explanation of its order authorizing a company to construct an interstate natural gas pipeline through Michigan and Ohio and to use eminent domain to acquire any necessary rights-of-way. A city and landowner group sought vacatur of the order, arguing tha...
A district court granted Boulder County's motion to remand to state court its lawsuit against energy companies for causing, contributing to, and exacerbating climate change. The companies argued the challenge belonged in federal court because it threatened to interfere with long-standing federal pol...
The D.C. Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition challenging EPA's update to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. Environmental groups and Delaware argued that EPA violated the CAA by failing to require upwind states to eliminate their significant contributions in accordance with the de...
A district court vacated NMFS' 2014 decision not to list the queen conch, a marine mollusk that inhabits the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, as endangered or threatened under the ESA. Environmental groups argued the decision should be vacated because NMFS applied a now-vacated agency policy to det...
The Fifth Circuit dismissed environmental groups' challenge to EPA's issuance of a CWA general permit authorizing discharges from oil and gas facilities operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental groups argued that EPA violated NEPA by failing to prepare an adequate EIS before issuing the permit...
The Fifth Circuit upheld a 2017 EPA rule that postponed compliance dates mandated by the Agency's 2015 rule setting new effluent limitation guidelines for flue gas desulfurization wastewater and bottom ash transport water from steam electric power plants. Environmental groups argued the 2017 rule ef...
A state high court upheld the Nebraska Public Service Commission's determination that approval of an alternative route for a proposed oil pipeline was in the public interest. Landowners and Native American tribes argued the Commission lacked jurisdiction under the state's Major Oil Pipeline Siting A...
In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of an environmental group's motion to intervene in a lawsuit challenging EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 2015 Clean Water Rule. The court found that the group had a practical interest in the rule and that this interest was no...
The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's implementation of its Renewable Fuel Standards Program, which requires transportation fuel sold in the United States to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. Some industry groups argued that EPA arbitrarily refused to revise its 2010 point of obligation rule that...
The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's 2015 revisions to the primary NAAQS for ground-level ozone to protect public health, but remanded to the Agency to reconsider its revisions to the secondary ozone NAAQS that protects public welfare. Industry groups and several states argued that EPA failed to provide a ...