A New York appellate court dismissed New York residents' lawsuit challenging the state's enforcement of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program that targets emissions from electricity generating power plants in New York and six other states. The resident...
A district court held that the owner of a vacant property is liable under CERCLA for the release of hazardous waste intentionally caused by trespassers. The owner, who left oil drums on the property, claimed she was entitled to the innocent landowner defense. But she failed to show by a preponderanc...
A district court dismissed, with leave to amend, a dry cleaning business owner's CERCLA claims against a water company for soil and groundwater contamination. The owner alleged that the water company's operation of a nearby well led to the release of perchloroethylene (PCE). But the complaint does n...
A California court upheld the California Air Resource Board's (CARB's) authority to sell greenhouse gas allowances at auction under the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, also known as Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32). As in its tentative decision issued last August, the court ruled that the a...
A district court held that the Virgin Islands may go forward with its suit to recover response costs it incurred responding to the release of hazardous substances at a former alumina facility. Under CERCLA, at least some costs must be incurred prior to the start of litigation in order for a plaintif...
The Second Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court decision dismissing as time barred New York's CERCLA claims against several defendants for costs a town incurred investigating and addressing groundwater contamination stemming from the New Cassel Industrial Area. The lower court held that the st...
The Ninth Circuit held that environmental groups lacked standing to compel the Washington State Department of Ecology and other regional agencies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the state's five oil refineries under the CAA. The groups claimed that the agencies failed to define emission li...
The Ninth Circuit held that the California Air Resource Board (CARB) low carbon fuel standard's regulation of ethanol does not facially discriminate against out-of-state commerce. CARB treats all ethanol within each regional category the same, and its decision to draw one of the regional categories ...
The Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that insurers had no duty to defend or indemnify an oil refinery in an underlying CERCLA lawsuit filed against it by EPA. EPA sent the refinery a letter in 2001 notifying it that it was a PRP. Because EPA's allegations in the letter arguably fell wi...