The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a shopping center owner's citizen suit action under RCRA against manufacturers of dry cleaning equipment. The owner argued that the manufacturers contributed to the release of hazardous waste into the environment by virtue of their machinery, which was a...

A district court granted a city's motion to dismiss a company's third-party complaint against it for reimbursement of cleanup costs the U.S. government incurred responding to hazardous substances at an industrial site formerly owned by the company. The government filed suit against the company under...

A Washington appellate court affirmed a lower court decision holding the state transportation agency liable to two utilities for contribution costs incurred at the Thea Foss Waterway, a Superfund site, under the state's Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA). The agency argued that the lower court erred in...

A district court held that the current owner of a service station may be held liable under CERCLA for the actions of its predecessor and therefore dismissed the owner's motion for summary judgment. The owner's predecessor allegedly generated and then disposed of waste oil at the site between...

A district court dismissed a city's CERCLA §107(a) suit against the United States to recover past and future response costs incurred at the former Schilling Air Force Base area in Salina, Kansas. CERCLA §113(h) bars challenges to ongoing response actions being taken under §104. Here, the ...

A district court held that utilities who sold used transformers to a scrap metal company in the 1970s are not liable under CERCLA or the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act. After Connecticut's environmental department discovered PCB contamination on the property, the current owner of t...

A district court held that the Secretary of the Interior violated FLPMA and the APA when he withdrew a record of decision (ROD) adopting six revised resource management plans, collectively known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions, for 2.5 million acres of BLM lands in western Oregon. The S...

The Ninth Circuit upheld, on statutory and constitutional grounds, California's vessel fuel rules as they apply to vessels located more than three miles off the California coast. The rules, which seek to reduce air pollutants affecting the state of California, require ocean-going vessels to ...

A district court dismissed a county's RCRA action against the former owner of contaminated property, but held that the former owner was liable to the county under CERCLA. The county purchased the property, a former rifle lens manufacturing plant, from the former owners. The property was then...

The Fourth Circuit reversed a lower court decision that an insurance company was obligated to pay the sums a landfill owner had incurred and was likely to incur in response to an EPA cleanup order. The insurance company issued the landfill owner a standard comprehensive general liability ins...