A district court dismissed a city's RCRA action against two power and gas companies concerning a methane gas leak from natural gas pipelines and waste oil contamination from a former manufacturing gas plant. Because methane gas does not meet the definition of "solid waste" under RCRA, the city canno...

A district court held that a 2014 settlement agreement between a spinoff company, the U.S. government, an energy company, and its parent bars over 4,300 individuals from bringing Pennsylvania tort claims arising from the operation of a wood treatment plant formerly owned and operated by the spinoff'...

A district court held that OSM violated NEPA when it approved a mining plan amendment that would expand a coal mine in Montana, and ordered the agency to prepare an updated EA within 240 days. Specifically, the court held that OSM violated NEPA's public participation and notice provisions when it fa...

A district court ordered NMFS to take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts of its definition of "fishery" with regard to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish fishery management plan (FMP) and whether river herring and shad should be included in the FMP. In 2014, the Mid-Atlantic Fisher...

A district court dismissed homeowners' CERCLA, RCRA, and state-law claims against the former owners and operators of a manufacturing plant for alleged well-water contamination. The court dismissed the CERCLA claims because the homeowners failed to allege that they incurred any recoverable response c...

A district court, in a 126-page opinion, dismissed environmental groups' NEPA lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Highway Administration in connection with a proposed six-lane, 50-mile highway project north of Birmingham, Alabam...

The Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, held that environmental groups have standing to bring a RCRA citizen suit against the U.S. Forest Service for failing to regulate the disposal of spent lead ammunition in the Kaibab National Forest. The groups allege that the Forest Service's failure to ...

The Second Circuit, in a summary order, upheld a coke company's convictions for RCRA violations at its facility near Buffalo, New York. The company claimed the RCRA convictions should be reversed because it lacked fair notice that its conduct was criminal. But it failed to raise this argument below....