Clean Water Action Council of Northeastern Wisconsin, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Seventh Circuit dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging EPA's decision not to object to Wisconsin's renewal of a Title V permit for a pre-1975 paper mill. Under the CAA's PSD program, emissions from pre-1975 sources count as part of the emissions baseline and not toward the overal...
Sierra Club v. Energy Future Holdings Corp
A district court ordered an environmental group to pay $6.4 million in attorney fees in a citizen suit it filed against the owners of a Texas coal-fired power plant for alleged CAA violations. Below, the court dismissed the group's claims that the plant violated the Act's particulate matter (PM) and...
Sierra Club v. Jewell
The D.C. Circuit held that environmental groups have standing to challenge DOI's decision to remove the Blair Mountain Battlefield—the site of a large 1921 coal miner uprising in West Virginia—from the National Register of Historic Places. Shortly after the Battlefield was listed in 2009, the si...
National Wildlife Federation v. Department of Environmental Quality
A Michigan appellate court upheld the state environmental agency's decision to grant a groundwater discharge permit to a company in connection with its plan to develop an underground mine to extract nickel and copper from the sulfide ores beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River. The permit,...
National Wildlife Federation v. Department of Environmental Quality
A Michigan appellate court upheld the state environmental agency's decision to grant mining and discharge permits to a company to develop an underground mine to extract nickel and copper from the sulfide ores beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River. Environmental groups opposed the permits,...
Sierra Club v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded EPA's decision to issue a PSD permit allowing a power company to build and operate a 600 megawatt natural gas-fired power plant. EPA missed the one-year statutory deadline to grant or deny the permit; during this same period, EPA tightened the applicable air qu...
Colorado Oil & Gas Ass'n v. City of Fort Collins
A Colorado court held that the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Act preempts a city's five-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. The city is a "home-rule" city, meaning it has “the full right of self-government” on local and municipal matters. Nevertheless, a local ordinance that infringes on...