The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the Surface Transportation Board's approval of a railroad company's applications to build a 130-mile railroad line in Southeastern Montana to haul coal. The Board prepared EISs under NEPA and included numerous mitigation measures in its approva...

A district court vacated EPA's stay of two rules setting forth emission standards from boilers and commercial and industrial solid waste incineration units. EPA issued the rules on March 21, 2011, and shortly thereafter several parties filed petitions for review challenging the legal sufficiency of ...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a petition challenging an air district's abatement order directing the owners of an open-pit mining operation to cease operation of the central plant equipment and all internal combustion engines with a rating greater than 5...

A district court held that Washington state must establish reasonably available control technology (RACT) for greenhouse gas emissions. Based on its plain language, the RACT provision contained in Washington's federally approved SIP is not discretionary and requires the state's agencies to estab...

The D.C. Circuit remanded EPA's NESHAPs for portland cement facilities. While EPA was establishing the NESHAPs, it was simultaneously developing a definition of commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI), which would create a separate category of pollutant sources subject to emis...

A district court denied an environmental group's motion to preliminarily enjoin the DOE from providing funding assistance for the construction and operation of a coal-fired power plant in Mississippi. Before granting the funding, the DOE issued an EIS evaluating the funding's environmental effects, ...

A district court held that DOE complied with NEPA when it determined that the construction of a "supercomputer" project on a college campus would have no significant environmental impact and did not require an EIS. The EA took a hard look at direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, adequa...

The D.C. Circuit upheld BLM’s decision to allow additional natural gas drilling in the Pinedale Anticline Project Area of western Wyoming. In 2008, the BLM adopted a record of decision (ROD) that, among other things, authorized the development of more natural gas wells than a previous ROD had sanc...