The court holds that a district court improperly relieved previous owners of property contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) of any liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for the property's cleanup. After purchasing the property, the cur...

The court holds that an Ohio property owner could seek Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §113 contribution, but not CERCLA §107 cost recovery from the previous owner of the property, and that the previous owner was not entitled to summary judgment on th...

The Ninth Circuit held that FWS did not violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) when it authorized the taking of the barred owl to help the recovery of the spotted owl. The spotted owl was listed as endangered under the ESA in 1990, and it was later determined that one of the factors affecting ...

The Court of Federal Claims held that a land owner is entitled to compensation for wells and an access road installed to monitor contamination on a property adjacent to Fort Detrick. A Maryland landowner was faced with a demand under CERCLA from EPA for access to his property to install wells for th...

The Tenth Circuit held that the Forest Service does not have to fulfill an environmental group's FOIA request for documents created by a third-party contractor related to a land exchange in Colorado. At the center of the case was an agreement between a developer and the Forest Service to exchange pr...

The court holds that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources exceeded its authority when it denied a power company's request for a Clean Water Act (CWA) §401 water quality certificate because the company failed to conduct a fish entrainment and mortality study. The court first holds that the a...

The Ninth Circuit held that portions of Idaho’s Agricultural Security Act violate the First Amendment. The law, enacted after a secretly-filmed expose of operations at an Idaho dairy farm went live on the internet, broadly criminalizes making misrepresentations to access an agricultural production...

A district court held that USDA Wildlife Services did not violate NEPA with its lethal wolf management policy in Idaho. In 2011, the gray wolf was delisted under the ESA in Idaho; as a result, management of the wolf population was returned to the state. Wildlife Services conducted an EA in 2011 conc...

The Delaware Supreme Court held that an energy company's shareholders cannot proceed with their suit against the company's directors and officers over the costs of addressing a coal ash spill into North Carolina's Dan River. In 2014, a storm water pipe ruptured beneath a coal ash containment pond, r...

A district court ruled that the District of Columbia's flushable wipe law won't take effect as scheduled. The law, which was to take effect January 1, 2018, stated that wipes labeled "flushable" must readily break up and degrade in sewers. A flushable wipes manufacturer sought to enjoin the implemen...