The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision denying environmental groups' request for attorneys fees after they successfully challenged OSM's grant of a coal mining permit revision. Below, the groups' lawsuit was consolidated with other actions challenging the permit revision, which was ultima...
The D.C. Circuit upheld the National Park Service's (NPS') deer management plan for Rock Creek National Park in Washington, DC. The plan involves the killing of white-tailed deer to reduce the herd to an ecologically sustainable level. An animal rights group argued that NPS failed to comply with the...
A district court held that environmental groups lack standing to challenge the U.S. Export-Import Bank's approval of a $90 million loan guarantee that supports a three-year, $100 million loan from a private bank to a coal exporter. The groups argued that the Bank's guarantee, which allows the coal c...
A district court, in a 199-page opinion, struck down a local county ordinance banning oil-and-gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing, within Mora County, New Mexico. Portions of the ordinance essentially provide that corporations have no federal constitutional rights. For example, the ordinanc...
The Court of Federal Claims held that a company that funded construction of an open-loop biomass facility to provide steam for a chicken rendering plant's electricity needs is entitled to reimbursement costs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARAR), but only for costs associated with ...
The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court decision affirming the U.S. Forest Service's decision to implement the Little Slate Project, a 2,598-acre timber thinning sale within the Nez Perce National Forest. Environmental groups asserted that the Forest Service and FWS violated the National Forest Manag...
A Pennsylvania court held that the state legislature acted within its constitutional authority when it gave itself the power to transfer money out of a special account, funded by oil and gas revenue from state lands, that had been set aside for conservation projects; but that the state's Department ...
A district court dismissed an environmental group's NEPA and Wilderness Act lawsuit challenging the U.S. Forest Service's approval of a proposed utility-scale wind farm project in the Green Mountain National Forest in southern Vermont. The groups sought declaratory and injunctive relief to permanent...
The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld state legislation enacted in 2012 that permits major oil pipeline carriers to obtain approval from the governor to exercise the power of eminent domain for building a pipeline—such as the controversial Keystone XL—in Nebraska. A lower court held that the law was...