A district court halted construction of a proposed high-voltage transmission line through the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. Environmental groups challenged FWS' original compatibility determination for the transmission line, which granted utility companies a right-of-way...
Plastics pollution has been an issue in the United States since discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch catapulted it to the forefront of news reporting. Regulatory and academic activity around plastics has had a common feature: it focused almost exclusively on one stage in plastics’ linear model and framed the problem as a waste problem.
The D.C. Circuit dismissed as moot Alaska's challenge to the Forest Service's 2001 Roadless Rule. The challenge centered on the Roadless Rule's impact on the Tongass National Forest, which the USDA exempted from the rule in 2020, but the state argued it should be allowed to proceed because the exemp...
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, vacated summary judgment for a California city in a RCRA citizen suit brought by an environmental group. The group had argued the city's water wells were contaminated by hexavalent chromium that was in turn transported to city residents through its water distribution system. ...
A district court granted summary judgment for the Forest Service in environmental groups' lawsuit concerning federally permitted livestock grazing in Colville National Forest. The groups argued the Service violated NEPA and the National Forest Management Act (NMFA) by failing to adequately assess th...
A district court temporarily suspended a logging project in grizzly bear habitat in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. An environmental group argued the Forest Service's approval of the project violated NEPA. The court found that the Service's failure to apply the Healthy Forests Restoration Act's...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for DOI and a Native American tribe in a lawsuit brought by a nearby tribe challenging DOI's decision that the former tribe's proposed casino on newly acquired off-reservation land would not be detrimental to the surrounding community. The plaintiff tribe ...
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a settlement of environmental liabilities must resolve a CERCLA-specific liability to give rise to a contribution action under §113(f)(3)(B), in a lawsuit concerning a landfill in Guam formerly owned by the U.S. Navy. After entering into a consent decree...
A district court granted summary judgment for a utility company in a lawsuit concerning groundwater discharges from coal ash ponds at its power plant in Kentucky. Environmental groups argued that the discharges threatened immediate and substantial environmental harm to a nearby lake and streams, in ...
In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Forest Service in a lawsuit concerning domestic sheep grazing in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Environmental groups argued the Service violated the National Forest Management Act, NEPA, and the APA by utilizin...