A district court vacated and remanded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS') designation of critical habitat in North Carolina for the wintering piper plover. The FWS may only designate occupied critical habitat in areas where the pertinent physical or biological features of the bird are curren...

The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision and held that two environmental groups have standing to bring suit against a city for violating its national pollutant discharge elimination system permit. The permit authorized limited discharges of effluent into a river and imposed mon...

A district court holds that a Canadian corporation that generated and disposed of hazardous substances directly into the Columbia River that were carried downstream into the waters of the United States must conduct a remedial investigation/feasibility study pursuant to a unilateral administrative or...

The Delaware Supreme Court held that the state environmental agency lawfully determined the "base fee" to be paid by a company under Delaware's Clean Air Act Title V operating permits program. The assessment was neither a regulation nor a case decision. Rather, the agency implemented a statutory dir...

The Tenth Circuit held that §103 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), which sets out reporting requirements for the release of hazardous substances from farming facilities, does not require each individual barn, lagoon, and land application area...

The First Circuit vacated and remanded individuals' convictions for illegally entering waters designated by the U.S. Navy as a danger zone under 18 U.S.C. §1382 during a military training exercise. The Navy's national pollutant discharge elimination system permit was valid despite being denied ...

The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded injunctive relief awarded to landowners on their Clean Air Act (CAA) fugitive dust claims against neighboring steel companies because they failed to establish irreparable harm and failed to comply with the CAA's notice provisions. The lower court properly held...

The Sixth Circuit denied an advocacy group's petition to review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision not to issue a notice of deficiency to the Ohio EPA for its allegedly inadequate implementation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) Title V permit program. EPA does not dispute the defi...

The Ninth Circuit held that, except for its claims under the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), a city's suit to enjoin the National Park Service's (NPS') development and rehabilitation of a former military base in California is dismissed. The city had st...

The Ninth Circuit held that the world's cetaceans--whales, dolphins, and porpoises--do not have standing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), or the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to challenge the U.S. Navy...