The First Circuit denied an electric company's petition for review of three Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders that asserted mandatory licensing authority over the company's hydroelectric project, required the company to install gauges to measure stream flow at the project, and requi...

A Nevada court upheld a county decision denying a company's request for a special use permit to mine clay from two open pits on federal land north of Reno, Nevada, and to build a plant to produce cat litter on private land nearby. The Mining Law of 1872 and federal regulations don't exempt the proje...

The court holds that a nuclear facility employee's state suit for damages based on personal injury allegedly caused by exposure to unsafe dosages of radiation was constitutionally removed to federal court under the Price-Anderson Amendments Act (PAAA), and that retroactive application of the PAAA di...

The court holds that the state of Nebraska's challenge to the siting of a regional low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) disposal facility in that state is barred by the regional LLRW disposal compact's 60-day limitation period. The state claimed that the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste ...

The court holds that the Pacific Northwest Electric Power and Conservation Planning Council (Council) violated the Northwest Power Act (NPA) §839b(h)(7) and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to explain, in its final amendments to its fish and wildlife program for the Columbia River Basin,...

The court holds that the operators of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor violated their duty of care to the public by releasing, during a 1979 accident at the facility, radiation in levels exceeding federal standards for radioactivity allowed in liquid or airborne effluents released off premises....

The court holds that punitive damages are available under Pennsylvania law and the Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988 (PAA)) to plaintiffs in a suit against the operators of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor for personal injuries allegedly resulting from exposure to radiation released during ...

The court holds that the Eleventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not bar a citizen group that was denied attorney fees by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality from asserting a Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) claim against the state agency in federal court. The ...

The court rules that the Price-Anderson Act does not bar, under an exception to the tribal exhaustion doctrine, Native American tribal court jurisdiction over an action against corporations operating a uranium processing mill on the Navajo Reservation in alleged violation of tribal law. Under the tr...

The court holds that a federal statutory requirement that holders of unpatented mining claims pay $100 per claim in 1993 and 1994 or else forfeit their claims did not effect an uncompensated taking of claimholders' property in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The fee replac...