A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision denying a natural gas company's petition challenging an air district rule requiring the company to monitor, record, and report changes in the quality of natural gas and air pollutant levels. The district acted reasonably in finding that ga...

The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that a property owner who discovered radioactive contamination on his land after he purchased it may not file suit against oil and trucking companies allegedly responsible for that contamination. Under Louisiana law, a property owner has no right or actual interes...

The court affirms the dismissal of a land trust's action alleging that a coal company that owned the mineral rights to a tract of the trust's land violated the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) and other federal and state laws. The trust alleged that the company's failure to comply ...

The court holds that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement's (OSM's) denial of a surface mining permit to a company was not a taking. The company's mining plan would invade the rock strata overlying an aquifer that supplies a local community with drinking water. The court first ho...

The court holds that an automobile manufacturers association is entitled to attorney fees in connection with an underlying action in which New York's zero emission vehicle sales requirement for model years 1998-2002 was held preempted under Clean Air Act (CAA) §209. The court first holds that the a...

The court grants automakers' motion to stay their challenge to Massachusetts' zero emission vehicle standards pending the automakers' appeal of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In an earlier decision, in which the automakers claim that...