The court holds that a power sale contract between an energy company and a public power district does not require the energy company to make current, nonrefundable payments of estimated decommissioning costs to the power district, but makes the energy company liable for decommissioning costs only in...

The U.S. Supreme Court holds that the criminal conviction of a hazardous waste facility operator under a Pennsylvania hazardous waste statute for operating a hazardous waste facility without a permit violated the federal Due Process Clause. When the operator was convicted, he in fact had a permit, b...

The court holds that an insurer providing a liability policy that covers damage to tangible property on the insureds' premises has no duty to defend the insureds in an easement dispute. The dispute arose after the insureds graded an access road on their property that allegedly interfered with their ...

The court upholds the decision of the state Fund Insurance Review Board that an underground storage tank (UST) installer is ineligible for reimbursement from the state's Ground Water Oil Clean-Up Fund for its costs of cleaning up gasoline contamination discovered in 1998 from a leaking UST because t...

The court holds that a manufactured gas plant operator was not entitled to coverage for cleanup costs it incurred in connection with a contaminated area near the Merrimack River in New Hampshire because the contamination caused by the operator was not accidental as required by its insurance policies...

The court denies citizen groups' motion for a preliminary injunction to restrain West Virginia's environmental agency from issuing a surface mining permit that would allow a ridge top in the headwaters of Island Creek, West Virginia, to be mined. The groups claimed that in conducting the cumulative ...

The court holds that a district court erred in including as "relevant conduct" for sentencing purposes an individual's sale of 118 black bear gall bladders to an undercover agent. The court first holds that the district court erred because relevant conduct under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines must b...

The court holds that a building owner failed to prove that a neighboring service station was negligent in performing environmental remediation and, thus, reverses and vacates a district court's judgment in favor of the building owner. The station performed the remediation pursuant to its corrective ...

The court affirms a district court dismissal of an Ohio solid waste collection company's claim that a county's waste processing rules violated the company's constitutional rights. The county adopted rules that required the county's waste to be disposed of in county-designated landfills that agreed t...

The court sets aside the critical habitat designation (CHD) for the southwestern willow flycatcher because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS') adoption of a baseline approach to measure the economic impact of the flycatcher CHD was an erroneous construction of the Endangered Species Act (ESA...