The Oregon Court of Appeals affirms a lower court decree enjoining owners of unpatented mining claims on federal lands from removing more than 50 cubic yards of material a year from Forest Creek without obtaining a state permit. The court rules that the federal mining laws do not indicate an intent ...

The court enters judgment for defendants in a suit alleging that the planned operation of the Trinity River division of the Central Valley Project in response to the 1976-1977 drought violates provisions of federal and state law. The Act authorizing the Trinity River Division directs defendants to t...

The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacates a lower court's order requiring the Secretary of State to object to the International Whaling Commission's ban on Eskimo hunting of the bowhead whale and thereby make the ban inapplicable in Alaska. Assuming without deciding that plaint...

The court dismisses a petition to review the licensing of the Church Rock uranium mill by New Mexico authorities and affirms the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) denial of a hearing on the state's licensing action. The petition does not point to any specific NRC decision that finally affected...

The Supreme Court rules, five to four, that an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation requiring the wetting of buildings containing asbestos during demolition is not an emission standard within the meaning of §112(c) of the Clean Air Act. The trial court therefore correctly dismissed an i...

In a suit challenging a provision of the New York Environmental Conservation Law which requires that non-accessory billboards be removed within a six-and-a-half-year amortization period, the New York Court of Appeals rules that the statute is constitutional as applied and remands the case to the low...

The New York Court of Appeals affirms the validity of a municipal zoning ordinance that bans the erection of non-accessory billboards and requires that all existing non-accessory billboards be removed within three years. The authority of the state or a subdivision thereof to enact such ordinances wi...

In an oral opinion, the court grants plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction against defendants' acceptance of bids for the leasing of tracts of the outer continental shelf off the Massachusetts coast for oil and gas exploration and development. Balancing the potential harm to the Great Ban...

On an emergency appeal from the preliminary injunction issued in Massachusetts v. Andrus, 8 ELR 20187 (D. Mass. Jan. 28, 1978), the First Circuit declines to reverse the district court's ruling and thereby reinstate the outer continental shelf oil and gas lease sales which had been scheduled for the...

The Fifth Circuit reverses a lower court's decision that the Corps of Engineers' denial of a dredge and fill permit was neither arbitrary nor capricious. After an extended statutory analysis, the court concludes that the applicants are mistaken in contending that the relevant standard of judicial re...