The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition challenging an NPDES permit authorizing oil and gas exploration facilities' discharge of 13 waste streams into the Beaufort Sea. The petition was filed by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, which represents Alaska Native villages tha...

A Colorado court upheld a city's decision to create a local electric utility. An electric company argued that the city council exceeded its authority when it created the utility. But the company missed the 28-day deadline for challenging quasi-judicial decisions. When the city declared that the cond...

The Supreme Court of Oklahoma held that a woman injured in a 2011 earthquake may go forward with her suit against two energy companies for allegedly causing the quake due to hydraulic fracturing operations. A lower court dismissed the case, concluding that the Oklahoma Corporation Commission has exc...

A Washington court ordered the state's environmental agency to reconsider its denial of youths' petition asking the agency to adopt rulemaking to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in accordance with the best available science. The youths had also petitioned the agency to recommend to the state le...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a 2010 FWS rule designating critical habitat for the threatened Santa Ana sucker, a small freshwater fish native to several California rivers and streams. In 2004, FWS approved a habitat conservation plan that encompassed nearly 1.26 million acres and provided participating ...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' CWA citizen suit against EPA for failing to respond in writing to their administrative petition seeking withdrawal of West Virginia's NPDES permit program, but held that the groups may go forward with their claim that the Agency's failure to timely re...