The court holds that plaintiffs may proceed with a citizen suit under §505 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) despite enforcement actions taken by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against the defendant and despite defendant's pending application for modification of its nati...

The court rules that the sale of parts of a migratory bird falls under the felony provision of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, but a felony conviction under that provision would violate due process because the provision does not require criminal intent. The court first holds that the government's ind...

The court holds that application of the Corps of Engineers' revised Federal Water Pollution Control Act §404 regulations to defendants' property would be retroactive and inappropriate, and that an order for partial restoration of filled wetlands is equitable under the circumstances. Because defenda...

The Court holds that California's public trust interest in certain privately held tidelands was extinguished when the state failed to assert the interest in federal patent proceedings establishing the validity of title to lands ceded by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-Ame...

The court rules that the automatic stay provision of the federal Bankruptcy Code does not prevent the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (DER) from compelling a debtor to correct violations of state surface mining laws. The court notes that the policy behind the automatic stay is to ...

The court grants a petition for rehearing of petitioner's challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) rejection of a Clean Air Act delayed compliance order (DCO) for its coke oven batteries. Initially, the court rejects a petition for rehearing en banc. The panel that earlier ruled in...

The court rules that private parties may sue a private defendant under §107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to recover hazardous waste site response costs, and under §§7002 and 7003 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery (RCRA) to abate an ...

The court holds that appellees' challenge to federal enforcement of the small-mine exemption standards of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) in Virginia is really a challenge to the federal standards themselves, a challenge that the court below lacked jurisdiction to hear. SMCRA ...

The Court rules that a corporate officer may be personally liable for response costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), and that the Eleventh Amendment bars a contribution and indemnification claim against a state by the defendant in a CERCLA cl...

The court rules that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) imposes strict, and, where the injury is indivisible, joint and several liability. Strict liability is the standard, the court holds, since that is the standard imposed by §311 of the Federal Wat...