The court affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court judgment requiring certain parties to pay a past operator 90% of past and future response costs it incurred and will incur at the Armour Road Superfund site in Kansas City, Missouri. The district court abused its discretion in refusing to...

The court denied a petition to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) decision not to initiate formal consultation with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Fisheries about the operation of a hydroelectric project. The project is operated by a utility under a 30...

The court upheld a lower court decision that the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) when it approved certain amendments to West Virginia's surface coal mining regulatory program. Contrary to arguments of the DOI, the agency was required to comply wi...

The court dismissed an environmental group's Endangered Species Act (ESA) claims against the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for failing to initiate and complete formal consultation with the U.S. Fish ...

The court upheld a lower court decision refusing to preliminarily enjoin the U.S. Forest Service's implementation of a "hazardous fuel reduction project" in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana. The project entails the treatment of 4,938 acres of land within the forest. The group argued that th...

The court held that, "by the slimmest of margins," the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of a regional general permit authorizing the dredge and fill of wetlands in a 48,150-acre region in Northwest Florida does not violate the Clean Water Act (CWA) or the National Environmental Policy Act (NEP...

The court held that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act in extending certain leases on land considered sacred to Native American tribes and in approving a geothermal plant to be built there by a California power company. The agenci...

The court reversed a lower court decision upholding the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) annual species review decisions for the red tree vole and its approval of certain timber sales in the Pacific Northwest. BLM's annual species review decisions for the red tree vole violate the Federal Land Po...

A California appellate court held that a water company may go forward with its strict liability claim against an oil company for methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) contamination stemming from gasoline leaks at nearby service stations. Although the oil company merely added the MTBE to the gasoline an...

A district court remanded portions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS') critical habitat designation of over 800,000 acres of land in California and Oregon for 15 vernal pool species. The rule excluded 23 tracts of land that would either suffer from detrimental economic impacts or for whic...