A district court held that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) arbitrarily and capriciously denied petitions to list certain genetically engineered varieties of grasses as noxious weeds under the Plant Protection Act. APHIS' insistence that international obligations require that p...

The court held that a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) incidental take statement authorizing the taking of all northern spotted owls associated with certain proposed timber harvests in the Pacific Northwest is invalid. As a result of a prior court opinion, the FWS voluntarily reinitiated consult...

The Seventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of landowners' takings claim against a city for allowing their land to become flooded due to city-owned stormwater detention ponds and a wastewater treatment facility. The flooding transformed their land from farmland to wetlands. The landowners filed an inve...

The Second Circuit upheld the dismissal of rescue, search, and cleanup workers' substantive due process complaint against federal officials for knowingly issuing false statements about air quality safety in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center. The wor...

The Ninth Circuit held that yellowfin tuna caught by encircling dolphins with purse-seine nets may not be labeled "dolphin-safe." Environmental groups challenged the Secretary of Commerce's finding that tuna caught with purse-seine nets does not have an adverse impact on dolphin populations. But the...

The Ninth Circuit vacated a lower court decision granting in part and denying in part cross-motions for summary judgment in a case concerning the validity of the federal government's policy for listing killer whales under the Endangered Species Act. Since the lower court issued its decision, the Nat...

The Federal Claims Court denied the U.S. government's motion to dismiss property owners' takings claims against it in connection with a U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's project along the shore of Lake Michigan. The owners claimed that the Corps' construction and maintenance of jetties from 1950 to 1989...

A district court held that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries (NOAA-Fisheries) did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it chose not to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) or environmental assessment for its Hatchery Listing Policy (HLP) fo...

The court held that General Statutes §22a-196, which prohibits the operation of asphalt batching and continuous mix facilities within one-third of a mile from any hospital, nursing home, school, area of critical environmental concern, watercourse, or residential area, does not violate the due proce...

A district court held that a county ordinance that bans the land application of "Los Angeles sludge" in the unincorporated areas of the county violates the Commerce Clause. The city of Los Angeles generates a large amount of sewage treatment residues, some substantial portion of which it would shi...