A district court denied motions to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the federal designation of over 1.8 million acres in the Sierra Nevada mountains as critical habitat for three amphibian species. Associations representing California ranchers and farmers who are no longer able to graze livestock on th...

The Second Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that CERCLA preempts state tort law claims brought by residents living near the Onondaga Lake Superfund site. The owner of the site undertook remedial action pursuant to a federal consent decree. The residents argued, on a state tort law theory, tha...

A district court ordered EPA to comply with a FOIA request concerning the EPA Administrator's statement on TV that he did not believe human activity was a primary cause of climate change. Following his remarks, an environmental group filed a FOIA request for EPA records “relied upon by Administrat...

A district court denied the U.S. government's motion to stay discovery in a lawsuit brought by a group of youths against the U.S. government for failing to protect them from climate change. The government argued that the group is not entitled to discovery because their claim must proceed under the A...

A Federal Claims court held that the Surface Transportation Board (STB) temporarily took landowners' property without just compensation for use as an interim trail under the National Trails System Act. The landowners' predecessors-in-interest sold right-of-way easements to a railroad for operation o...