The Fifth Circuit held that DOI did not violate a district court order preliminarily enjoining enforcement of a drilling moratorium following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico by issuing a second drilling ban. Shortly after the spill, at the president's direction, DOI prohibi...
A district court ordered BLM to revise the Craters of the Moon and Pinedale resource management plans (RMPs) to correct deficiencies concerning impacts on the sage-grouse. In an earlier decision, the court held that BLM's EISs for the RMPs failed to adequately analyze impacts to the sage grouse in v...
A Minnesota appellate court held that the state environmental agency did not err in certifying under CWA §401 EPA's proposed NPDES vessel general permit, which allows shipping vessels in Lake Superior to discharge ballast water in state waters. Nonprofit groups argued that the agency applied an inc...
A district court held that an insurance company need not indemnify its insured for certain repair and replacement costs it incurred cleaning up the release of contaminants from an underground gasoline storage tank. A clear reading of the plain language of the policy indicates the company was not req...
A California appellate court affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision approving an agreement between landowners, the Santa Maria Valley Water Conservation District, and local cities and water companies in a water rights dispute over the groundwater contained in the Santa Maria Va...
A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision denying a petition challenging a city's certification of a final environmental impact report (EIR) for a project to amend the city's "sphere of influence" to include an undeveloped portion of a university campus in order to allow the city ...
The First Circuit upheld an amendment to the fishery management plan for the Northeast Multispecies Groundfish Fishery. Among other things, the amendment altered and expanded the fishery's preexisting "sector allocation program" and established new restrictions on fishing activities to prevent overf...