A district court held BLM violated NEPA when it approved 13 oil and gas leases covering 19,788 acres in the Santa Fe National Forest without considering the leases' impacts on climate change. BLM decided an EIS was not warranted based on its FONSI. But BLM failed to take a hard look at the impacts o...
A district court dismissed groups' NEPA and CWA claims against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in connection with its approval of a 17-mile transmission line across the James River near historic Jamestown, Virginia. The Corps took a "hard look" at the project and properly determined that no EIS was...
A district court held that BLM violated NEPA by failing to adequately consider climate change in the resource management plans (RMPs) for Buffalo, Wyoming, and Miles City, Montana, both located within the coal-rich Powder River Basin. BLM's EISs failed to consider any alternative that would decrease...
The Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing residents' NEPA lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) concerning its approval of a scenic trailway through the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan. One of the alternative routes for the trailway, which NPS proposed...
A district court upheld the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS') decision to waive the legal requirements of NEPA, ESA, and CZMA for two border wall construction projects in San Diego, California. DHS made its waiver determination under §102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant ...
The D.C. Circuit denied a environmental group's petition to review a FERC decision allowing the transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Freeport Terminal in Texas. In 2011, an energy company requested permission for daily exports of LNG out of Freeport. FERC granted the application, findin...
A district court halted the expansion of a Montana coal mine approved by the Surface Mining Enforcement Office for violations of NEPA. In 2008, a coal company requested approval of a mine expansion in the Bull Mountains to extract coal owned by the federal government. In 2011, BLM prepared an EA to ...
Environmental justice communities are especially disadvantaged when it comes to direct community intervention in matters critical to their well-being. Opportunities may exist, however, to institutionalize resources for those communities’ benefit. In particular, environmental enforcement actions could prove a reliable and effective conduit to access resources and obtain environmental and public health benefits, tailored to communities’ self-identified needs.