The Ninth Circuit held that a court may not approve a consent decree that substantially and permanently amends regulations that the agency could only otherwise amend by complying with statutory rulemaking procedures. The consent decree at issue in the case arose from a settlement between environment...

A California court held that San Diego County's climate action plan violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and must be set aside. The plan should have been the subject of a supplemental environmental impact report (EIR) under CEQA instead of an addendum to the county's existing Pro...

The Federal Circuit reversed the dismissal of landowners "rails to trails" takings claims against the government. The landowners alleged that the government's issuance of a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment (NITU) in 2006 constituted a compensable Fifth Amendment taking because it operated ...

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...