A three-judge court rules that California regulations providing for a gradual reduction in airport noise levels are not per se invalid as intruding into a field of aircraft regulation, which is preempted to the federal government. The rules present several suggested means by which this reduction can...

In an action brought under §10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act and §§301 and 309(d) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, a developer who dredged canals and filled marshes without a permit from the Corps of Engineers agrees, in a final consent judgment, to pay the United St...

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the adequacy of the Department of the Interior's environmental impact statement for the sale of oil and gas leases on the Outer Continental Shelf along the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The plaintiffs have failed to establish by a preponderan...

A federal district court has jurisdiction, under the precedent of Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, to determine whether the plaintiff has stated a federal common-law nuisance claim for which relief can be granted against the defendant for polluting tributaries of Lake Michigan. A private citizen who s...

The Supreme Court reverses a Fifth Circuit ruling that variances may be granted to individual sources under the Georgia implementation plan only if they meet the strict procedural and substantive requirements of §110(f) of the Clean Air Act. The court holds that EPA's construction of the Act permit...

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the Atomic Energy Commission violated its own regulations in issuing a construction permit for the Bailly nuclear power plant on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The city line of Portage, Indiana, a city which will have more than 25,000 residents i...

The court dismisses, for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, a citizen suit brought under §304 of the Clean Air Act to enjoin the discharge of silicon tetrachloride from a chemical facility. The primary and secondary national ambient air quality standards do not constitute em...

By defining "navigable waters" in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 to mean "waters of the United States," Congress intended to assert federal jurisdiction over the nation's waters to the maximum extent possible under the Commerce Clause. The Army Corps of Engineers' definit...

The Supreme Court reverses a ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the environmentalist plaintiffs in the litigation surrounding construction of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline are entitled to an award of attorney fees against the oil company consortium that intervened as a defendant. The c...

The court dismisses, for lack of jurisdiction, a suit challenging the validity of EPA's guidelines and standards for the petroleum refining point source category promulgated pursuant to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. Plaintiffs' motion for additional discovery is denied ...