A district court held that BP and Anadarko Petroleum are responsible parties under OPA for pollution stemming from the Deepwater Horizon disaster and subject to civil penalties under the CWA, but that issues remain as to whether Transocean can be held liable under the CWA. BP and Anadarko co-owned...
The D.C. Circuit remanded a Minerals Management Service (MMS) order obligating an oil and gas company to plug permanently and to abandon its oil wells off the coast of California. The company argued that its contractual obligations under the lease, including any duties to plug and abandon the well, ...
The Fourth Circuit upheld an injunction requiring the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to obtain NPDES permits for reclamation efforts at abandoned coal mining sites. The text of the CWA, as well as corresponding EPA regulations, confirm that the permit requirements apply...
A district court held that North Carolina's general 10-year statute of repose does not bar a woman's lawsuit against the United States for injuries stemming from exposure to contaminated drinking water at a military base in North Carolina 20 years earlier. The North Carolina Legislature did not inte...
A Maryland appellate court held that under certain circumstances, Maryland law permits recovery for emotional distress related to reasonable fear of cancer. The case involved a jury verdict awarding compensatory damages totaling over $147 million to hundreds of plaintiffs who claimed that an oil...
The First Circuit upheld the dismissal of residents' Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) against the United States in connection with the Navy's alleged negligence in emitting certain pollutants during military exercises at a naval training facility on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico. The discretionary f...
A district court denied an oil company's motion to enforce a 1991 consent decree entered into in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The decree expressly released the company from cleanup obligations following the decree's entry. But it also contained a "reopene...
A district court upheld EPA's rule setting numeric nutrient criteria for Florida except in two respects: the stream criteria and the default downstream-protection criteria for unimpaired lakes. In 2009, recognizing that the state's narrative criterion was insufficient to control Florida's widesp...
A New York court upheld a town's zoning amendment that bans hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) within its jurisdiction. The zoning amendment was enacted in response to a petition from town residents concerned about hydrofracking's impact on ground and surface water supplies. An energy company ...
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court decision that Montana may charge rent from an electric company that owns dams on the Missouri, Madison, and Clark Fork rivers. The Montana Supreme Court held that title to the riverbeds passed to Montana when it became a state in 1889 and awarded alm...