The court holds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) violated its regulations by denying petitioners a public hearing before it authorized Pacific Gas and Electric's (PG&E's) Diablo Canyon power plant license amendments to redesign radioactive fuel rod configurations and expand storage p...

The court holds that the National Park Service's (NPS') voluntary compliance with a district court injunction renders moot a challenge to the lower court's order that the NPS must prepare cumulative environmental impact statements (EISs) on the effects of mining operations in three national parks in...

The court holds that petitioner's failure to seek rehearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) within 30 days of FERC's order staying the effective date of a hydroelectric project license is a jurisdictional bar to judicial review of the order. The court observes that the Federal...

On rehearing, the court holds that the Forest Service's plans to construct the last six miles of a logging road and to permit timber harvesting in the Blue Creek Unit of the Six Rivers National Forest in California would violate the Indian plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to free exercise of relig...

The court holds that the Corps of Engineers (Corps) lawfully issued a Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) §404 permit allowing a logging company to fill 17 acres of a wetland for log storage and sorting, and the Corps was entitled to consider off-site mitigation measures in its decision not...

The court holds that the long-term exposure limit issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for ethylene oxide (EtO) is supported by substantial evidence, but that OSHA's decision not to issue a short-term exposure limit is not supported by the record. The court initially se...

The court holds that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) information requests from former operators of an inactive waste site are authorized under §3007(a) of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), RCRA's penalty provision is not criminal in nature, and defendants' failure to ...

The court holds that an environmental group challenging the construction of condominiums on the Alabama coast is entitled to an injunction to prohibit state officials and the developer from initiating the project until the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decides whether a supp...

The court rules that the Pennsylvania State Department of Environmental Resources (DER) must, pursuant to the Pennsylvania Clean Streams Law, consider economic or aquatic impacts when issuing a national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit. Under DER regulations, receiving stream wa...

The court holds that market rates, not the normal billing rates of plaintiffs' public interest law firm, apply to the lodestar calculation in plaintiffs' application for attorney fees under §505(d) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA). The court first holds that plaintiffs are entitle...