The D.C. Circuit upheld DOI's five-year plan for oil and gas leases on the outer continental shelf (OCS). A nonprofit group argued that the 2012-2017 leasing schedule violated §18(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which governs how DOI is to balance competing economic, social, and enviro...

An Arizona court overturned the state's issuance of an air permit for a proposed open-pit copper mine. An environmental group argued that the state's approval of the permit was arbitrary and capricious because the mine has the potential to violate NAAQS. They also claimed that the mine's modeling re...

The Ninth Circuit denied an environmental group's petition challenging EPA's approval of a revision to California's SIP. The revision provided alternative "not less stringent" controls to what is required in CAA §185's antibacksliding measures, which require that major stationary sources of polluti...

The U.S. Supreme Court adopted a Special Master's determination that Nebraska "knowingly failed" to comply with its obligations under a 2002 settlement agreement that resolved an underlying water allocation dispute between Nebraska and Kansas. The settlement established mechanisms to accurately meas...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a trucking association's federal preemption challenge to a California environmental regulation on diesel trucks. The regulation requires heavy-duty diesel trucks, whose emissions contribute significantly to particulate matter and ozone pollution, to be upgra...