Affirming the district court, 9 ELR 20128, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the Department of the Interior need not prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) prior to the issuance of a mineral patent. The court first points out that as the issuance of a mineral patent is a minist...

In an en banc decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court upholds a decision of a district court affirming an order of the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources that denied appellants' request for a retroactive permit authorizing past deposits of fill material into a lake. The court first re...

The court affirms the ruling of a United States magistrate, to which the case was transferred by the district court, that the issuance by the Corps of Engineers of a permit to construct an outfall pipe from a manufacturing plant is not a major federal action requiring the preparation of an environme...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a district court ruling, 6 ELR 20715, that the owner of unpatented mining claims on federal lands has the right to exclude members of the general public from recreational use of the land which does not interfere with mining activities unless they have obta...

The court rules that the Secretary of the Interior was not required to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in conjunction with his submission to Congress of a legislative proposal regarding changes in the cost-sharing requirements for fe...

The court grants summary judgment to the federal defendants in a case challenging their failure to prepare a comprehensive environmental impact statement (CEIS) concerning a series of water resources projects in the Colorado River Basin. Preliminary procedural decisions in the same case may be found...

The court rules that the Secretary of the Interior has broad authority to issue permanent regulations implementing the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act but remands a number of regulatory provisions for revision as arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise inconsistent with the law, pursuant to t...

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a district court's orders refusing to quash subpoenas to petitioners' former outside counsel or to terminate a grand jury investigation of the withholding of information concerning the carcinogenicity of the pesticides heptachlor and chlordane from the En...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a decision of a district court dismissing, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, a complaint seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against the proposed discharge of radioactive effluent from the damaged Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. As to a...

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reverses an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) order cancelling the registration of a rodenticide after finding that the order was based upon the erroneous assumption that EPA has authority to establish and enforce minimum effectiveness standards for pesticides ...