The U.S. Supreme Court, 8-0, held that the D.C. Circuit failed to afford the Surface Transportation Board the substantial deference NEPA requires in a challenge to the Board's authorization of a new 88-mile rail line in the Uinta Basin, and that the court incorrectly interpreted NEPA to require the ...
Tribes in the Pacific Northwest have faced persistent obstacles to their exercise of treaty fishing rights, most prominently illegal regulation of off-reservation fishing by state governments. As salmon decline, a new frontier is emerging for treaty right violations: environmental degradation. A recent court victory ruled that a series of culverts owned and operated by the state of Washington violated tribal treaty rights to fish for salmonids at their “usual and accustomed” places.
A district court temporarily enjoined a land exchange between the U.S. government and a copper mining company concerning 2,422 acres of land in Tonto National Forest. A community group argued the land transfer, which includes a sacred Apache burial ground, would violate its and its members' First an...