The court granted a petition to review two Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders that allowed a California gas-to-energy plant to use natural gas to produce up to 25 percent of its energy. The court first holds that according to the Federal Power Act's (FPA's) plain language, statutory ...

The court holds that the former owner of all shares of a stock in a hazardous waste recycling facility is solely liable for the facility's cleanup based on the terms of a stock purchase agreement it entered into with the purchaser of the facility's stock. The parties entered into a remediation agree...

The court affirms in part and reverses in part a district court decision awarding damages to a marina that was damaged by a nearby oil spill. The court first holds that the marina's Oil Pollution Act (OPA) claim was analogous to a claim under the common law at the time of the Seventh Amendment's rat...

The U.S. Supreme Court holds that Colorado must pay damages, including prejudgment interest from the year the complaint was filed, to Kansas for violating the Arkansas River Compact. The parties entered the compact in 1949 to equitably divide and apportion Arkansas River water to the states and thei...

The Court holds that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exceeded its Clean Water Act (CWA) §404(a) authority to regulate the discharge of dredged or fill material into U.S. navigable waters, when, under the Migratory Bird Rule, it extended the definition of "waters of the United States" to include no...

The court holds that the National Park Service violated the Wild and Scenic River Act's requirement to select land according to the oustandingly remarkable values standard when it established the Niobrara Scenic River area boundary. The court first holds that the Park Service's boundary selection fo...

The court holds that a drainage tile company's appeal of a civil penalty imposed for discharging a pollutant into a wetland without a Clean Water Act (CWA) §404 permit was untimely. CWA §309(g)(8)(B) states that a party may obtain judicial review of a civil penalty by filing a notice of appeal wit...

The court holds that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) does not preempt individuals' failure-to-warn claims against property owners and two pesticide manufacturers even though the claims are based on or implicate the pesticides' labels. The claims, which were pleaded in...

The Tenth Circuit dismissed a challenge to a DOI rule governing hydraulic fracturing on federal and tribal lands, overturning a lower court ruling. In 2015, BLM finalized a fracking regulation that imposed new well construction, testing requirements, and chemical disclosure requirements, and increas...

The Washington state Shorelines Hearing Board denied plans to build a methanol refinery on the Columbia River because the plans failed to adequately consider greenhouse gas emissions. A manufacturing company proposed to manufacture methanol from natural gas supplied by a lateral pipeline, with the m...