The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court's dismissal of an environmental group's challenge to the validity of U.S. Forest Service timber sales under NEPA and the National Forest Management Act on res judicata grounds. The current complaint alleges the same causes of action stemming from the same nuc...

The Tenth Circuit reversed a lower court decision to reinstate three oil and gas leases, previously denied by the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), because the BLM failed to comply with NEPA. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) concluded that two existing the National Environmental Policy Act (...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a district court decision dismissing environmental groups' challenge to a timber harvest approved by the U.S. Forest Service as part of a watershed restoration project in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. The Forest Service failed to take the requisite "hard look" under...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a district court decision that the Forest Service violated NEPA when it issued multiyear special-use permits and granted renewals of special-use permits to commercial packstock operators in the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wilderness Areas. The Forest Service clearly breached i...

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a district court decision that the U.S. Forest Service's decision to approve harvesting timber in the Mark Twain National Forest did not violate NEPA or the ESA. The Forest Service did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in determining that the project would have no sign...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision to find that biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) on timber harvests and critical habitat for the northern spotted owl improperly relied on an unlawful regulatory definition of "adverse modification" and impermissibl...

The Tenth Circuit dismissed a landowner organization's appeal of a district court order upholding the DOI's decision to acquire certain property in trust for the 19 Indian Pueblos of New Mexico. To the extent the organization's requested relief would divest the United States of title to the property...

A California appellate court affirmed a jury finding that established a prescriptive easement for a restaurant to cross its neighbor's property in order to make deliveries. To establish a claim of right to a prescriptive easement, the claimant need not believe he or she is legally entitled to use of...

A California appellate court affirmed a referee's decision that a proposed pipeline easement unreasonably interfered with a railroad right-of-way and proposed second track and that condemnation was not warranted. A railroad sought to move a pipeline existing in the railroad’s right-of-way in or...

The D.C. Circuit vacated an EPA rule authorizing the use of two ozone-depleting foam insulation agents as substitutes for an ozone-depleting chemical scheduled to be phased out in 2003. EPA’s reliance on economic constraints requires reversal of its rule. EPA argued that the rule relied on tech...