A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision allowing a park district to go forward with its condemnation action to help complete a shoreline park and trail but ordering the district to prepare an environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The ...

The Federal Circuit reversed the dismissal of landowners "rails to trails" takings claims against the government. The landowners alleged that the government's issuance of a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment (NITU) in 2006 constituted a compensable Fifth Amendment taking because it operated ...

A district court held that FLPMA §204(c), which allows Congress to block DOI withdrawals of new mining claims in excess of 5,000 acres through a resolution of both houses, is unconstitutional. In 2012, DOI withdrew more than one million acres of federal land from mining location and entry in northe...

A district court upheld BLM's approval of a record of decision (ROD) and its grant of a right of way (ROW) allowing the construction of a utility-scale wind project in California's Sonoran Desert. Conservation groups challenged BLM's actions under NEPA and FLPMA. But BLM's decision to grant the ROW ...

A district court upheld BLM's approval of a record of decision (ROD) allowing the construction of 112 wind turbines in an area that contains cultural and biological significance to a Native American tribe. BLM's decision to approve the ROD was reasonable as it considered all relevant factors and pro...

A Michigan appellate court held that Michigan's Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act does not preempt a local ordinance requiring all septic tank waste collected from within a township to be taken to a specific treatment facility. Although the state legislature enacted a comprehensive ...