A Colorado court upheld a city's decision to create a local electric utility. An electric company argued that the city council exceeded its authority when it created the utility. But the company missed the 28-day deadline for challenging quasi-judicial decisions. When the city declared that the cond...

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma held that a woman injured in a 2011 earthquake may go forward with her suit against two energy companies for allegedly causing the quake due to hydraulic fracturing operations. A lower court dismissed the case, concluding that the Oklahoma Corporation Commission has exc...

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 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 D.C. Circuit held that building and development associations lacked standing to challenge consent decrees that require FWS to determine, in accordance with a settlement-defined schedule, whether 251 species should be listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA. The case arose after environm...