The Tenth Circuit overrules the dismissal of an enforcement suit brought against a leachate gold mining operation, holding that not all mining activities are exempt from regulation as point sources of pollution under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA). The district court erred in assumi...

Section 125 of the Clean Air Act, under which major air pollution sources can be required to use local coal in order to minimize local economic disruption, is not unconstitutional under either the Commerce Clause or the Fifth Amendment. Although this provision treats differently persons within and w...

In 1975, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), a bistate organization created pursuant to the Tahoe Regional Planning Compact, enacted a transportation plan calling for the construction of certain roadways and the widening and improvement of others in the city of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding ...

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a district court decision vacating an injunction against completion of improvements to State Route 73 in New York. After the trial court initially found the administrative record inadequate to support respondent federal and state highway agencies' claim th...

The court reverses the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator's waiver of federal preemption of California's 1.0 grams per mile (gpm) NOx emission standard for model years 1980 and 1981 light-duty motor vehicles insofar as it applies to vehicles manufactured by small producers such as p...

Reversing the lower court's grant of summary judgment, 9 ELR 20142, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals remands the Secretary of the Army's denial of an "after-the-fact" permit for fences erected by appellant beyond the mean high water line into Manhasset Bay, Long Island. Appellant, who leased from...

The New York Court of Appeals, reversing the decision of the appellate court below, rules that wilderness property owned by the appellant trust is exempt under state law from municipal property taxes. The trust lands consist of 5,000 acres of undeveloped land in the upper Shawangunk Mountains. Acces...

The crime fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege permits the disclosure of an attorney's work product produced during the continuation of criminal violations of pollution control laws. An attorney for FMC Corp. claimed attorney-client and work product privileges in refusing to produce cert...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the imposition of criminal sanctions on a corporation and its officers for discharging pollutants in violation of §301 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA). The court rejects defendants' contention that the Environmental Protection Agency (EP...

The court grants defendants' motion for summary judgment in a suit seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against the proposed construction of a bus parking facility. Plaintiffs alleged that the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project, which would accomodate 250 buses in Montgomery C...