The Tenth Circuit held, 2-1, that a sovereign must affirmatively act to extinguish aboriginal water rights in a lawsuit concerning water rights of the Pueblos of Jemez, Santa Ana, and Zia in the Jemez River Basin in New Mexico. The district court had concluded that the Pueblos' water rights were ext...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for NMFS in a challenge to the Service's rule imposing a quota system for a Pacific non-whiting groundwater fishery that limited the total allowable catch and prohibited any one entity from controlling more than 2.7% of the outstanding quota share. The fis...

The Nevada Supreme Court held that the public trust doctrine did not permit reallocation of water rights already adjudicated and settled under the doctrine of prior appropriation in a lawsuit concerning established water rights for a deteriorating lake in western Nevada. The court found that while t...

A district court denied environmental groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin or stay a rule issued by CEQ revising the regulations for federal agencies to follow in implementing NEPA. The groups argued that the rule was inconsistent with NEPA because, among other things, it improperly removed the re...

A district court denied a motion to reconsider its 2018 ruling that gave EPA discretion as to how to establish a new TMDL for trash in the Anacostia River. An environmental group argued that little progress had been made since the 2018 ruling and that the court should require the Agency to establish...

The Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling ordering mining and finance companies to comply with EPA's requests for information related to cleanup of a contaminated site in Utah. The companies argued that EPA exceeded its authority under CERCLA when it issued the information requests, the requests...

In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part an environmental group's petition to review EPA's approval of the Idaho Pollution Discharge Elimination System (IPDES). Specifically, the court denied the petition with respect to the group's challenges concerning the st...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the U.S. Navy in a challenge to its decisions to relocate troops from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam and construct training facilities on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Environmental groups argued the Navy's decisions were "connected...

The California Supreme Court held that a county's policy of approving permits for new water wells without environmental review violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Conservation groups argued that issuances of the permits were discretionary, not ministerial, projects and thus req...

A district court denied a motion to preliminarily enjoin further construction of a 429-mile natural gas pipeline in Texas. An environmental group sought to halt work on the pipeline at 129 water crossings, arguing the Army Corps of Engineers authorized construction at those crossings in violation of...