The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying an environmental group's request to enjoin the implementation of a statute, §1713 of the 2011 Appropriations Act, that orders the Secretary of the Interior to remove a portion of a distinct population of gray wolves from the protections ...
A district court upheld the OSM's approval of amendments to West Virginia's federally approved SMCRA program that pertain to cumulative hydrologic impact assessments. The amendments delete the program's definition of “cumulative impact” and add a definition for “material damage to the ...
A New York court upheld a town's enactment of a zoning law that bans oil and gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing, within the geographical borders of the township. The holder of two gas leases argued that §23-0303 of New York's Environmental Conservation Law preempts the zoning law. The...
The Texas Supreme Court held that landowners have an ownership interest in the water beneath their property that cannot be taken for public use without adequate compensation under the Texas Constitution. The Texas courts have long held that landowners have ownership in oil and gas beneath their ...
A district court held that North Carolina's general 10-year statute of repose does not bar a woman's lawsuit against the United States for injuries stemming from exposure to contaminated drinking water at a military base in North Carolina 20 years earlier. The North Carolina Legislature did not inte...
A Maryland appellate court held that under certain circumstances, Maryland law permits recovery for emotional distress related to reasonable fear of cancer. The case involved a jury verdict awarding compensatory damages totaling over $147 million to hundreds of plaintiffs who claimed that an oil...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a conservation group's claims that the State Department violated its NEPA and ESA obligations in conducting annual certifications of countries exempted from the general ban on shrimp imports. Section 609(b) of Public Law No. 101-162 prohib...