A district court held that an insurance company breached its duty to defend a steel company in an underlying contribution case under Montana's Comprehensive Environmental Cleanup and Responsibility Act (CERCA) stemming from the company's alleged release or threatened release of hazardous substances ...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA’s decision to defer adopting new secondary NAAQS for oxides of sulfur (SOx) and nitrogen (NOx) pending further scientific study. Citing doubts about the accuracy of its aquatic acidification index model—used to quantify the connection between SOx and NOx in the air an...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA’s decision denying environmental groups’ request to add coal mines to the regulated list of stationary source categories under the CAA. In denying the groups’ petition for rulemaking, EPA made it clear that the denial was not a determination as to whether coal ...

The D.C. Circuit denied industry groups' petition for review challenging EPA's 2013 primary NAAQS for fine particulate matter. In the final rule, EPA lowered the level of the particulate matter NAAQS from 15.0 μg/m3 to 12.0 μg/m3, a level slightly lower than the lowest concentrations reported as c...

A district court held that a conservative nonprofit group lacked standing on four of its six claims challenging Colorado's renewable energy standard (RES), which requires utilities to obtain at least 30% percent of its energy from renewable sources by the year 2020. The group claimed that three disc...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's renewable fuels standard (RFS) for 2013. Because EPA reduced the cellulosic ethanol blending requirement for 2013 but not the total renewable fuel volume, petroleum refiners filed suit arguing the rule should be vacated. The court disagreed. The CAA provides that if EPA...

A district court held that a coal company violated the CWA and SMCRA by discharging excessive amounts of selenium into the waters of West Virginia. The company argued that the environmental group's lawsuit should be dismissed because it had already entered into a consent decree with the state enviro...

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...