The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's denial of a petition filed by 101 environmental groups asking the Agency to regulate spent lead bullets and shot under TSCA. EPA rejected the petition as “non-cognizable” under TSCA §21 on the grounds that it largely duplicated an earlier petition that two of the 1...
The North Dakota Supreme Court upheld an administrative law judge's (ALJ's) award of benefits in the death of an oil-tank worker. According to the medical examiner's report, the worker died from hydrocarbon poisoning due to the inhalation of petroleum vapors from oil storage tanks. His employer argu...
A district court, in a 120-page decision, dismissed claims that the U.S. Navy negligently exposed a child to thallium dust during its cleanup of a contaminated landfill site. The child's family, which lived next to the site, alleged that wind-blown dust migrated to their yard and home and caused her...
A district court denied an oil company's motion to amend the findings, alter the judgment, or order a new trial in the Deepwater Horizon case in which the court found the company grossly negligent in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The company argued that it repeatedly objected to expert witness ...
The D.C. Circuit denied a petition for review seeking vacatur of an OSHA rule, the Hazard Communication Standard, as it applies to combustible dust. The Hazard Communication Standard requires employers to develop a program for classifying the dangers of workplace chemicals and conveying those danger...
A district court granted summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on all but one claim in a lawsuit filed against the agency challenging its decision in 2013 to make certain "flow augmentation releases" (FARs) of water from a dam located in the Trinity River Division of the Centra...
A Louisiana court held that the state erred in issuing a coastal use permit to a natural gas storage and transport company that was needed to create two new natural gas storage caverns in the Jefferson Island salt dome underneath Lake Peigneur. The state's natural resource department violated the st...