A district court dismissed an oil refiner's CERCLA action against a recycling company for costs it incurred responding to PCB contamination allegedly resulting from used oil that was delivered from the company's facility to the refinery. The claim fails because there has been no release or thre...

A district court, in a 116-page opinion, upheld the FWS' final rule listing the polar bear as a threatened species under the ESA. The FWS' decision to list the bear represents a reasoned exercise of the agency's discretion based on the facts and the best available science as of 2008 when the ag...

A district court held that under a 1997 consent decree resolving CWA, RCRA, and state-law violations at a steel mill, the current owner is not liable for remediating any discharges that occurred prior to its purchase of the mill out of the previous owner's bankruptcy, but that it must conduct a site...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying an environmental group's request to enjoin the implementation of a statute, §1713 of the 2011 Appropriations Act, that orders the Secretary of the Interior to remove a portion of a distinct population of gray wolves from the protections ...

The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court decision dismissing breach of contract, takings, and Klamath River Basin Compact claims brought against the U.S. government by agricultural landowners and water, drainage, and irrigation districts in Oregon and California. The plaintiffs...

A district court upheld the OSM's approval of amendments to West Virginia's federally approved SMCRA program that pertain to cumulative hydrologic impact assessments. The amendments delete the program's definition of “cumulative impact” and add a definition for “material damage to the ...