Town of Westport v. Monsanto Co.
A district court dismissed a town's Massachusetts Oil and Hazardous Material Release Prevention and Response Act claim against the corporate spinoffs of Old Monsanto, the sole manufacturer of PCBs in the United States between 1935 and 1979. After discovering PCBs in some of the area schools, the tow...
Rodriguez v. Secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Environment
The Third Circuit upheld a lower court decision dismissing, on standing grounds, a doctor's claim challenging the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law that limits a doctor's ability to obtain information about the mixture of chemical fluids used during hydraulic fracturing when treating patients ...
Big Thorne Project
A district court upheld the U.S. Forest Service's approval of the Big Thorne Project in the Tongass National Forest, thereby allowing the logging of approximately 6,186 acres of old growth forest and construction of 46.1 miles of new Forest Service roads to begin on April 1, 2015. Environmental grou...
Oregon Wild v. Bureau of Land Management
A district court held that BLM violated NEPA and the APA when it authorized a logging project in an area of Douglas County, Oregon, that provides habitat for the northern spotted owl. In its EA for the project, which would effectively remove 160 acres of mature forest, BLM failed to consider a reaso...
Kain v. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection,
A Massachusetts court dismissed residents' lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that the state's environmental agency failed to comply with §3(d) of the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). The GWSA is a legislative scheme designed to address the effects of climate change in Massachusetts by prom...