A California court upheld the California Air Resource Board's (CARB's) authority to sell greenhouse gas allowances at auction under the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, also known as Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32). As in its tentative decision issued last August, the court ruled that the a...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision dismissing a clean energy group's petition challenging a city's certification and approval of an environmental impact report (EIR) prepared for a proposed update to the city's general plan. The group argued that the approved final EIR fell...

A California appellate court held that California's Commission on State Mandates erred in ruling that certain requirements set forth in a municipal stormwater sewer permit for Los Angeles County constituted unfunded state mandates subject to reimbursement under the state constitution. Although the p...

A district court issued an injunction ordering the U.S. Forest Service to prohibit industrial equipment—known as "mega-loads"—headed for the Alberta Sands from being transported along a highway that runs through the Nez Perce Reservation and the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest until certain...

A Wisconsin court held that the state environmental agency should have considered impacts on downstream water quality when it issued a state pollutant discharge elimination system permit to an industrial dairy processing plant. An environmental group challenged the permit, arguing that it would allo...

The Supreme Court of Kansas reversed and remanded the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's decision to issue a prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit to a power company to construct an 895-megawatt coal-fired power plant. An environmental group filed suit against the state age...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court decision vacating a 2009 settlement agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and environmental groups that banned oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest pending the completion of a multi-year, forestwide EIS under NEPA. The lower court had pre...

A district court held that BLM complied with NEPA and FLPMA when it authorized a uranium mining project in south central Wyoming. BLM, in conjunction with other state and federal agencies, undertook extensive and exhaustive reviews of the potential environmental impacts of the project, and the agenc...

The Eighth Circuit vacated and remanded EPA's best available retrofit technology (BART) determination for a large power plant in North Dakota, but otherwise upheld EPA's partial disapproval of two SIPs submitted by North Dakota to meet the CAA's visibility requirements as well as the Agency's federa...

The Ninth Circuit held that the California Air Resource Board (CARB) low carbon fuel standard's regulation of ethanol does not facially discriminate against out-of-state commerce. CARB treats all ethanol within each regional category the same, and its decision to draw one of the regional categories ...