The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition challenging an NPDES permit authorizing oil and gas exploration facilities' discharge of 13 waste streams into the Beaufort Sea. The petition was filed by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, which represents Alaska Native villages tha...

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded EPA's rule limiting hazardous air pollutant emissions from power plants, holding that the Agency interpreted CAA §112(n)(1)(A) unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants. CAA §112(n)(1) directs EPA to regulate e...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a 2010 FWS rule designating critical habitat for the threatened Santa Ana sucker, a small freshwater fish native to several California rivers and streams. In 2004, FWS approved a habitat conservation plan that encompassed nearly 1.26 million acres and provided participating ...

The Ninth Circuit denied petitions for review challenging EPA's promulgation of 40 C.F.R. §52.245, a regulation that revised the scope of a previous EPA decision, after the Agency determined that it had mistakenly approved certain new source review rules in 2004 as part of California's SIP. EPA iss...

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review challenging EPA's approval of a revision to California's SIP that authorized the San Joaquin Valley air pollution control district to impose fees on mobile sources of pollution—primarily motor vehicles—as an alternative to the fees previously impose...

The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service violated ESA §7 when it failed to reinitiate consultation after FWS designated critical habitat for the Canada lynx on National Forest land. In 2006, FWS designated critical habitat for the Canada lynx that did not include any National Forest land...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE's) approval of oil spill response plans for an oil company's leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas on Alaska's Arctic coast. Several environmental groups claimed that BSEE's approval was arbitrary and capricious un...

The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions for review challenging EPA's federal implementation plan to reduce regional haze at two power plants in Montana. The owner and operator of the plants, as well as environmental groups, filed separate petitions for review, and the court ag...