The court upholds the constitutionality of punitive damages provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Minnesota Environmental Response and Liability Act (MERLA). After several years of litigation in which plaintiffs have sought to have t...

The court holds that the district court had no subject matter jurisdiction over claims by the city that state effluent standards violated a consent decree, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), or due process. The court first notes that it reviews de novo a dismissal for lack of subject m...

The court holds that a real estate corporation and its individual owner are liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for state response costs concerning, and under New York nuisance law for the abatement of, hazardous waste pollution at a dispos...

The court rules that costs incurred to comply with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) are response costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), but that plaintiff waste site owner's action against the prior owner is barried by a relea...

The Court holds that anticompetitive sewage treatment activities of a municipality, undertaken pursuant to a clearly articulated state policy of replacing competition with regulation, are protected by the state action exemption from the antitrust laws. States are exempt from the antitrust laws due t...

The court holds that the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) authorizes actions to redress injury caused by pollution of interstate waters under the common law of the state in which the injury occurred. The court first reviews the Illinois v. City of Milwaukee litigation, and concludes that,...

The court holds that plaintiff environmental groups are not entitled under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) to attorney fees from industry intervenors or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for work performed in opposition to intervenors. Congress has not provided in the FWPCA a...

The court holds that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits the Secretary of Interior from issuing regulations permitting the sport trapping of eastern timber wolves, a threatened species, unless the Secretary determines that population pressures within the wolves' ecosystem cannot otherwise be ...

The court holds that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) did not need to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the issuance of a preliminary permit for a hydroelectric project on the Tuolumne River, because the permit did n...

The court holds that punitive damages are available under the Price-Anderson Act. Though the Act is intended as a compensatory rather than punitive scheme, Congress intended that state law be used to determine the damages available, subject only to the upper limits imposed by the Act. Congress expre...