The Ninth Circuit held that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over environmental groups' citizen suit challenging the Montana Department of Environmental Quality's potential approval of a surface mining permit. The groups argued that the agency director would be in violation of SMCRA if she appro...

A district court denied an environmental group's motion to preliminarily enjoin BLM from issuing oil and gas leases in central and southwest Nevada due to allegedly defective environmental analyses. Although BLM has conducted a lease sale, it retains discretion to issue any leases resulting from tha...

The Tenth Circuit held that an energy company may cross private property in order to develop new oil well sites under the property owner's surface estate as well as to access one of its existing wells located on adjacent BLM property. The only way to access the well on the BLM property is via a road...

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...