A district court held that a 2017 EPA directive that prohibited scientists in receipt of certain EPA grants from serving on the Agency's federal advisory committees was arbitrary and capricious. An environmental group argued, among other things, that the directive failed to provide a reasoned explan...

A district court held an international development bank that financed construction of a coal-fired power plant in India was immune from a suit brought by a group of Indian villagers claiming the plant polluted surrounding air, land, and water. The bank argued that the group could not sue it in feder...

The Court of Federal Claims held that the U.S. government was not liable for the flooding of homes near two dams managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Property owners downstream of the dams argued that the government flooded their lands by opening the dams' ...

In an advisory opinion to Florida's attorney general, the Florida high court concluded that a proposed initiative to amend the Florida Constitution to restructure the state's electricity markets should not be placed on the ballot. The attorney general argued that the initiative's title and summary f...

The Fifth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not waived its sovereign immunity from Louisiana's lawsuit alleging that the Corps failed to maintain the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway within authorized parameters under the River and Harbor Improvements Act (RHIA). Louisiana argued that...

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The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's dismissal of an environmental group's request to compel DOI to reinstate the Refuges Rule, which prohibited Alaska's predator-control methods on national wildlife refuges as well as certain methods of hunting bears and wolves. The group argued that Congr...

The Fifth Circuit blocked a preliminary injunction issued by a district court that had barred the Trump Administration from using military funds to build portions of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The district court had found that the Consolidated Appropriations Act expressly forbade th...

The Fourth Circuit vacated the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board's approval of a permit for construction of a compressor station associated with a natural gas pipeline in an historically African-American community. Environmental groups argued that the Board erred in failing to make any findings r...