The court upholds a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule that was promulgated pursuant to the Overflights Act and designed to reduce aircraft noise from sight-seeing tours in the Grand Canyon National Park. The Act required the Secretary of the Interior, via the National Park Service (NPS), to...

The court holds that the Federal Highway Administration's (FHwA's) approval of a highway project in West Virginia violated the Department of Transportation Act §4(f) historic sites review requirement. The court first holds that the plain language of §4(f)'s regulations, 23 C.F.R. §771.135(b) and ...

The court holds a landowner liable under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) for discharging polluted stormwater without a permit into a stream on his property that flows into ponds on his neighbors' property. The discharges occurred when the landowner was harvesting timber and developin...

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service complied with the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it issued a permit to a Colorado ski resort for the expansion of a ski area within the White River National Forest. The court first holds that ne...

The court holds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision to implement the direct federal underground injection control (UIC) program on certain New Mexico lands based on their Native American or disputed jurisdictional status did not violate either the Safe Drinking Water Act...

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of a FERC order approving the construction of new facilities to allow for the flow of natural gas from Mexico northbound into southern California. FERC's EIS contained a reasonably thorough discussion of the environmental impact of its actions based on ...

The court holds that the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) denial under the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Land Withdrawal Act of an application to drill on an oil and gas lease did not constitute a permanent taking of the leaseholder's rights. BLM denied the application until the U.S. Environ...

The court holds that a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report classifying environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a known carcinogen violated the Radon Gas and Indoor Air Quality Research Act. The report classifies ETS as a group A carcinogen known to cause cancer in humans. The court first ...

The court upholds the U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI's) decision to deny lessors' request to cancel their Native American oil and gas lease because of the lessee's royalty underpayment violations. The court first holds that the lessors' constitutional argument is meritless. Instead of arguin...

The court grants a city's petition for review and reverses the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) order requiring the city to conduct a study of the effects of the Yelm Hydroelectric Project on the anadromous fish in the Nisqually River in Washington. The study would be used to determin...