A New York appellate court reversed a lower court decision annulling a local law aimed at preventing the despoilation and destruction of wetlands and watercourses. The lower court ruled that the town enacted the law in violation of New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), but the a...

A California appellate court upheld the issuance of a county permit for a landfill expansion project in the Suisun Marsh, part of the San Francisco Bay tidal estuary. Environmental groups claimed that the permit approvals violate the Sonoma County Local Protection Plan and, specifically, a county or...

The D.C. Circuit affirmed the U.S. Forest Service's decision denying an emergency petition filed by an environmental group seeking “roadless” designation for roughly 1,000 acres on Burnt Mountain in Colorado's Snowmass ski area and suspension of the Aspen Skiing Company’s authorization to cut ...

The Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court decision rejecting the claims of San Juan County and the state of Utah to a public right-of-way, called Salt Creek Road, in Canyonlands National Park. The state and county wish to use their claimed right-of-way to prevent the United States from closing the Salt...

A district court held that Minnesota's New Generation Energy Act, which establishes energy and environmental standards related to carbon dioxide emissions, constitutes impermissible extraterritorial legislation and is a per se violation of the dormant Commerce Clause. The statute's plain language ap...

A New Jersey appellate court held that the state's Department of Environmental Protection violated the New Jersey APA when it withdrew from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program. In 2011, the state posted a notice on the Department's website that is was withdrawing from the RGGI prog...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision invalidating a 2003 USDA regulation that temporarily exempted Alaska's Tongass National Forest from the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. USDA clearly acknowledged that its 2003 record of decision, which excluded the Tongass from the Roadless Rul...

A district court held that fee restrictions set forth in the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (REA) do not apply to private, third-party concessionaires who operate recreation areas within the National Forests. Nonprofit groups challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s issuance of several speci...

The Supreme Court of South Carolina reinstated an administrative law court (ALC) decision that reversed and denied a state agency's issuance of a permit for a construction and demolition landfill. The ALC denied the permit based on its conclusion that the region already had more landfill capacity th...

The Ninth Circuit, in a 170+ page opinion, reversed in part and affirmed in part a lower court decision invalidating the FWS' 2008 biological opinion (BiOp) that concluded that the Central Valley Project (CVP) would jeopardize the continued existence of the delta smelt and its habitat. The project s...