A district court ordered an environmental group to pay $6.4 million in attorney fees in a citizen suit it filed against the owners of a Texas coal-fired power plant for alleged CAA violations. Below, the court dismissed the group's claims that the plant violated the Act's particulate matter (PM) and...

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 denied residents' petitions for review challenging FERC's approval of a new natural gas compressor station in their town. Although the project is now finished and functional, the petitions are not moot because the residents assert that the compressor's operation continues to harm th...

A Michigan appellate court upheld the state environmental agency's decision to grant a groundwater discharge permit to a company in connection with its plan to develop an underground mine to extract nickel and copper from the sulfide ores beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River. The permit,...

A Michigan appellate court upheld the state environmental agency's decision to grant mining and discharge permits to a company to develop an underground mine to extract nickel and copper from the sulfide ores beneath the headwaters of the Salmon Trout River. Environmental groups opposed the permits,...

The Sixth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, upheld the dismissal of claims that FHwA violated NEPA when it approved a $2.6 billion construction and transportation management project designed to improve mobility across the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky. Despite a nonprofit group's arguments to...

The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded EPA's decision to issue a PSD permit allowing a power company to build and operate a 600 megawatt natural gas-fired power plant. EPA missed the one-year statutory deadline to grant or deny the permit; during this same period, EPA tightened the applicable air qu...

The Ninth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to review a U.S. Coast Guard letter to FERC concerning the suitability of the Columbia River for vessel traffic associated with a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility and pipeline. The letter of recommendation stated that although the river...

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a lower court's decision that FHwA and North Carolina complied with NEPA in their approval of a bridge and highway improvement project between the mainland and the Outer Banks barrier islands, but reversed that court's determination that the defendants were exempt from co...