The court upholds several off-road vehicle (ORV) restrictions imposed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in certain parts of Utah. BLM complied with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it enacted the restrictions, BLM's decision to close vari...

A district court enjoined the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from leasing approximately 1.7 million acres within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska for oil exploration. The lease concerns vast areas of sensitive wetlands surrounding Lake Teshekpuk that are protected under the National Petrole...

The court denied mining industry groups' and mine operators' petitions for review of three Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rules regulating diesel particulate matter (DPM) in underground mines. The court rejected the petitioners' claim that the MSHA did not have sufficient evidence that...

The court upheld a lower court decision dismissing an environmental service company's patent infringement suit against a hazardous waste remediation contractor. The contractor was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up a lead-contaminated parcel of land near Colonie, New York. The com...

The court held that the U.S. Air Force was liable to homebuilders who had cleaned up asbestos contamination at the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. The homebuilders didn't discover the asbestos until after they purchased the former base property. When the Air Force refused to clean up the asbe...

The Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court decision denying a citizen group's lawsuit to enjoin the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) approved operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a nuclear waste repository located in southeastern New Mexico. The group argued that DOE relied on faulty data re...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court decision invalidating U.S. Forest Service regulations governing the review of decisions implementing forest plans, but remanded the court's judgment with respect to the remaining challenged regulations on ripeness grounds. Only two of the regulations, 36 C.F.R....

The court held unripe a petition challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) decision to grant a license permitting the construction and operation of a spent nuclear fuel storage facility on land belonging to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Utah. After the NRC approved the li...

The Federal Claims Court held that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) must pay two nuclear utilities over $77 million in damages for failing to commence performance of its contract to accept, transport, and dispose of the utilities' spent nuclear fuel. Under the contract, DOE was to start accepting...

A Michigan appellate court upheld a lower court's imposition of over $2.5 million in penalties against the owners of a gas station for failing to comply with certain orders and statutory requirements in remediating contamination due to leaking underground storage tanks at the site. The trial court a...