The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that a property owner who discovered radioactive contamination on his land after he purchased it may not file suit against oil and trucking companies allegedly responsible for that contamination. Under Louisiana law, a property owner has no right or actual interes...

The court affirms the dismissal of a land trust's action alleging that a coal company that owned the mineral rights to a tract of the trust's land violated the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) and other federal and state laws. The trust alleged that the company's failure to comply ...

The court holds that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement's (OSM's) denial of a surface mining permit to a company was not a taking. The company's mining plan would invade the rock strata overlying an aquifer that supplies a local community with drinking water. The court first ho...

The court holds that an automobile manufacturers association is entitled to attorney fees in connection with an underlying action in which New York's zero emission vehicle sales requirement for model years 1998-2002 was held preempted under Clean Air Act (CAA) §209. The court first holds that the a...

The court grants automakers' motion to stay their challenge to Massachusetts' zero emission vehicle standards pending the automakers' appeal of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling in the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In an earlier decision, in which the automakers claim that...

The court holds that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by failing to prepare a biological opinion (BO) that properly addressed how the North Pacific fishery management plans (FMPs) for the groundfish fisheries in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska ...

The court affirms a district court decision holding that hazardous waste regulatory charges imposed by New York on federal installations operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in New York are reasonable service charges within the meaning of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act §6001(a), ...

The court holds that three electric utilities may maintain their breach of contract claims against the government for the failure to begin by January 1, 1998, the disposal of spent nuclear fuel waste produced at the utilities' plant as agreed to in a 1983 contract. The government conceded that it wo...

The court reverses the dismissal of a utility's breach of contract claim against the government for failing to dispose of the utility's spent nuclear waste beginning no later than January 1, 1998, as agreed to in a 1983 contract. The government notified the utility that it would be unable to begin d...