The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the NRC's refusal to include the threat of air attacks in its revised "design basis threat" rule, initially promulgated to protect nuclear power reactors from industrial sabotage. In March 2007, NRC revised the rule to increase the range of threats i...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision declining a water user association's request for a declaration that it has well-defined rights to develop power in the Diamond Fork System of the Central Utah Project and instead declaring that the association, the United States, and the local water ...

The Ninth Circuit held that animal rights organizations lacked standing to challenge a USDA notice stating that "there is no specific federal humane handling and slaughter statute for poultry." The lower court entered summary judgment in favor of the USDA, holding that while the plain meaning of the...

The D.C. Circuit ordered FERC to reconsider its reporting rules for interstate natural gas pipelines. During the public comment period, petitioners—a national trade association of gas utility companies—requested additional and more detailed reporting requirements for shipper-supplied gas for pip...

A district court denied environmental groups’ motion for partial summary judgment with respect to their claim that the United States’ maintenance of the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet violated EPA’s surface water criterion regulations promulgated pursuant to §4004(a) of RCRA. Althou...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision to dismiss environmental groups’ action against the National Park Service (NPS) on the grounds that NPS did not act arbitrarily and capriciously under the APA by adopting a management plan that permitted the continued use of motorized raft and ...

A district court granted in part and denied in part the motion of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to dismiss a mine operator’s action relating to the MSHA’s use of a citation quota, which allegedly caused mine inspectors to issue baseless citations to the operator. As a prelimin...

The Court of Federal Claims held that nuclear utilities were entitled to almost $57 million in mitigation expenses related to DOE’s failure to accept nuclear waste by the date set forth in the contract between the utilities and DOE. In their suit, the utilities sought, among other things, cost...

A district court allowed negligence claims against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to continue in seven lawsuits stemming from a coal-ash spill, but it held that the TVA is not subject to punitive damages. Plaintiffs filed four class action complaints and four non-class action complaints seekin...

A district court dismissed a city's RCRA and the California Hazardous Substances Account Act against the United States in a dispute concerning the environmental remediation of Old Hammer Field in Fresno, California. The site, presently occupied by an airport, was used by the United States as an Army...