The Alaska Supreme Court held that neither the Alaska Constitution nor the Alaska Land Act require the state's natural resources agency to issue a written best interest finding at each step of an oil and gas development project. The Act's best interest finding requirement is purely a creature of the...
A district court dismissed as untimely Alaska's lawsuit challenging the 2001 roadless rule, which prohibits roadwork and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of national forest, including 14.7 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in Alaska. Alaska's cause of action accrued in...
A district court held that individual ingredients of hydraulic fracturing formulas are trade secrets and do not need to be publicly disclosed. The Wyoming Public Records Act does not define trade secrets, but the Wyoming oil and gas commission's policy for evaluating trade secrets is reasonable and ...
A district court held that genuine issues of material fact preclude a grant of summary judgment in a petroleum distributor's contribution claim against an oil company for costs incurred cleaning up hazardous substance contamination at a gas station and bulk petroleum storage plant formerly leased by...
A district court held that commercial fishing groups may go forward with their NEPA lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation in a case involving the Bureau's approval of eight water delivery contracts in California's Central Valley. The groups argued that the Bureau's EA failed to adequately consid...
The Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction prohibiting an environmental activist group from interfering with an oil company's outer continental shelf (OCS) exploration activities in the Arctic Ocean. The lower court's preliminary injunction barred the group from coming within specified distances of vess...
The Tenth Circuit dismissed an appeal brought by energy companies arguing that §266(b)(1)(A) of the Mineral Leasing Act requires BLM to issue oil and gas leases within 60 days of payment. The energy companies were the highest bidders on 118 pending leases, and because more than 60 days had passed s...
Maine's highest court vacated a state permit authorizing the construction of a wind turbine project on Saddleback Mountain. Twenty-one days before the state environmental agency approved the permit, the state's environmental board adopted an amendment that, among other changes, lowered the nighttime...