The D.C. Circuit held that an EPA employee's lawsuit against the Agency for allegedly retaliating against him in violation of several environmental whistleblowing provisions was untimely. In 2000, the employee was working in EPA's ombudsman office. Following a pattern of controversial behavior at a ...

The Second Circuit held that CERCLA does not allow a subcontractor hired to perform cleanup activities on a site the right to recover the value of unpaid work directly from the landowner. The landowner paid a general contractor for costs associated with the cleanup of a contaminated parcel of land. ...

A district court largely upheld several administrative decisions made by federal agencies approving the construction of various aspects of an offshore wind energy project in Nantucket Sound, remanding only two issues to FWS and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for ESA violations. Four gr...

The Federal Circuit held that the U.S. government did not breach its contract with two oil and gas exploration companies when it imposed new regulatory requirements after their lease went into effect. The companies jointly leased the mineral rights to land on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) from t...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's CAA citizens suit against EPA for failing to make a finding that Idaho and Utah failed to timely submit SIPs for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). In 2007, EPA issued a rule that required states to submit their SIPs for PM2.5 within three years afte...

The Ninth Circuit, in a 170+ page opinion, reversed in part and affirmed in part a lower court decision invalidating the FWS' 2008 biological opinion (BiOp) that concluded that the Central Valley Project (CVP) would jeopardize the continued existence of the delta smelt and its habitat. The project s...

A district court held that environmental groups may go forward with their CWA lawsuit against a rail carrier for allowing coal dust from open-top rail cars to be released into U.S. waterways. At issue was whether coal dust from rail cars that falls onto land, rather than directly into the waters, of...

The Sixth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers complied with NEPA and the CWA when it issued a §404 permit to a mining company for a secondary mining project that was part of a larger mining operation in Kentucky. The Kentucky Division of Mine Permits, which has exclusive jurisdiction...

A district court held that an insurance company has a duty to defend a commercial property owner in an underlying action concerning contamination from property it leased to a dry cleaning business. The owner discovered the contamination in 2007. In 2008, it tore down the property. In 2010, the owner...