A Texas appellate court reversed a lower court decision enjoining a city from undertaking certain activities relating to further development of its proposed water well plan on a landowner's property. The city owns the groundwater rights under the landowner's property, and in 2012 it proposed a well ...
The Supreme Court of Alaska upheld a ballot initiative that would require legislative approval of the any new large-scale metallic sulfide mining operation—the Pebble Mine gold and copper project—in the Bristol Bay watershed. Despite mining associations' arguments to the contrary, the "Bristol B...
The D.C. Circuit dismissed teenagers' lawsuit against the federal government for failing to cap greenhouse gas emissions. Invoking the federal question statute, 28 U.S.C. §1331, as the basis for subject matter jurisdiction, the minors alleged that the federal defendants are trustees of essential na...
The D.C. Circuit dismissed as untimely a coal mine operator’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a DOI regulation requiring coal mine operators to pay a fee for each ton of coal they produce by mining. The regulation requires mine operators to pay the reclamation fee when the coal is ult...
A district court held that Minnesota's New Generation Energy Act, which establishes energy and environmental standards related to carbon dioxide emissions, constitutes impermissible extraterritorial legislation and is a per se violation of the dormant Commerce Clause. The statute's plain language ap...
A New Jersey appellate court held that the state's Department of Environmental Protection violated the New Jersey APA when it withdrew from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program. In 2011, the state posted a notice on the Department's website that is was withdrawing from the RGGI prog...
An Alaska court held that state law impliedly preempts a ballot initiative that would allow a local borough to prohibit the issuance of a permit for large-scale mines that would have a significant adverse impact on salmon-bearing waters. The court rejected the state's claim that the initiative, loca...
The Ninth Circuit held that BLM did not violate NEPA or FLPMA when it approved the expansion of a gold mine near Nevada's Mount Tenabo. Native American tribes claimed that BLM failed to address mitigation measures specific to groundwater in situ, failed to propose new mitigation measures relating to...