The Ninth Circuit, in an amended opinion, denied an environmental group's petition challenging EPA's decision to grant two air permits authorizing exploratory drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean by a drillship and its associated fleet of support vessels. The permits require the drillship to comp...

A district court held that BLM violated NEPA when it sold four oil and gas leases on approximately 2,700 acres of federal land in Monterey and Fresno counties without considering impacts from hydraulic fracturing. The leases are located in California's Monterey Shale Formation, which is estimated to...

A district court held that EPA has no mandatory or nondiscretionary duty to make a determination as to whether lead emissions from general aviation aircraft engines using aviation gasoline endanger the public health or welfare under CAA §231(a)(2)(A). A finding that emissions cause or contribute to...

The Sixth Circuit held that the CAA does not categorically prevent EPA from challenging preconstruction projections of whether and to what extent emissions will increase following construction. The preconstruction projection determines whether the project constitutes a “major modification” and t...

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 Eleventh Circuit vacated EPA's 2011 disapproval of Alabama SIP provisions on opacity, thereby reinstating EPA's 2008 approval of opacity limits. EPA's 2011 disapproval was unauthorized by the CAA because EPA failed to make the statutorily required error determination. Neither the text of the fin...