A district court dismissed for lack of standing a lawsuit challenging the Executive Order that requires agencies to repeal two existing rules for each new rule promulgated. California, Minnesota, and Oregon argued that the order delayed or resulted in the undertaking of four rulemakings and that the...
The Trump Administration has aggressively rolled back prior administrations’ environmental regulations and natural resource policies, and critics of this agenda have turned to the judiciary. A remarkable string of federal court decisions has faulted the Administration for failing to follow the standard for agency policy change articulated in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.
Minnesota's high court upheld an appellate court ruling in favor of a county's zoning ordinance that bans all industrial-mineral mining, including silica-sand mining. A silica-sand mining company argued the ordinance violated the dormant Commerce Clause by discriminating against its business. The hi...
A district court held invalid an amendment to the city of Toledo's charter that gave legal rights to Lake Erie. A local family farm argued the amendment was unconstitutionally vague and thus that it should be invalidated. The court found that the environmental rights of the lake and its watershed to...
A district court denied summary judgment to the U.S. government in a lawsuit concerning California's cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec. The government argued the agreement violated the Treaty Clause of the U.S. Constitution because it was binding and "confederat[ed] the laws of the two jurisdictio...
The Fourth Circuit upheld a district court order that remanded to state court the city of Baltimore's climate change case against oil companies. The city alleged it sustained climate change-related injuries, including an increase in sea levels, storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts, and extreme precip...
The D.C. Circuit dismissed as untimely Maryland's petition to review the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) approval of new flight paths to Washington National Airport. The state argued the new flight paths, which concentrated aircraft noise over its public lands, should be vacated because th...
The Court of Federal Claims held that the U.S. government was not liable for the flooding of homes near two dams managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Property owners downstream of the dams argued that the government flooded their lands by opening the dams' ...
The Fifth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not waived its sovereign immunity from Louisiana's lawsuit alleging that the Corps failed to maintain the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway within authorized parameters under the River and Harbor Improvements Act (RHIA). Louisiana argued that...
The Court of Federal Claims held the U.S. government liable for the flooding of homes and businesses near two dams managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Property owners argued that the government improperly used their land to retain floodwaters during the hu...