The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed, 6-1, an appellate court decision vacating a lower court ruling that no trial was needed in a climate change lawsuit concerning Oregon's obligations to protect natural resources under the public trust doctrine. Two young Oregonians argued the state was required to a...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a toxic, environmentally persistent class of chemicals that have been used widely in consumer products. Despite growing evidence of adverse health effects associated with PFAS exposure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not yet promulgated a legally enforceable standard for any of the individual chemicals in the PFAS group. This has resulted in largely unrestricted disposal of PFAS waste and dispersal of these persistent chemicals throughout the environment.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling in a lawsuit concerning the U.S. government's and California's recovery of cleanup costs from a hazardous waste spill in the Sierra Nevada foothills that released toxic amounts of arsenic into local groundwater. Plaintiffs sued the company that had acq...
A district court granted in part and denied in part an oil company's motion to dismiss a climate change adaptation lawsuit brought against it. An environmental group brought a citizen enforcement action under the CWA and RCRA, challenging the company's failure to adapt one of its storage terminals t...