The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision upholding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' conclusion that it had jurisdiction over wetlands on a developer's property. The Corps permissibly defined the scope of its review area as including 448 acres of similarly situated wetlands. B...

A district court denied a property owner's motion to add RCRA claims to its CERCLA and state law action against a dry cleaner for groundwater contamination. The property owner failed to comply with RCRA's notice requirements. The boilerplate and conclusory RCRA notices provided by the owner fai...

The Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing residents' RCRA lawsuit against a nearby solid waste facility. The lower court ruled that it lacked federal subject matter jurisdiction because the state was pursuing an enforcement action in state court. The appellate ...

A district court held that the USDA Rural Utilities Service's (RUS') failure to prepare an EIS in connection with the expansion of a coal-fired power plant violated NEPA. RUS' involvement in the project, including financial assistance under the Rural Electrification Act, constitutes a "major fe...

The D.C. Circuit upheld an Interior Board of Land Appeals decision refusing to reinstate four oil and gas leases off the California coast that were expired due to political considerations. In 1999, the Pacific Regional Director of the Minerals Management Service caused the leases, for which an energ...

The D.C. Circuit denied a power company's petition for review of a FERC order that North Carolina did not waive its CWA certification authority necessary for the relicensing of the company's hydroelectric facilities. One of the preconditions of relicensing is receipt of a state certification th...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that Wyoming did not violate the Yellowstone River Compact by allowing its pre-1950 water appropriators to increase their net water consumption by improving the efficiency of their irrigation systems. The compact protects beneficial use water rights in existence prio...

A district court held that an insurance company must defend its insured in an underlying case involving minors' exposure to contaminated drinking water stemming from the insured's property. When the insurer refused to defend the insured, the insured filed suit against the insurance company for ...

A district court dismissed a mining industry association's action challenging DOI Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) regulations allocating the burden of proof in five types of administrative proceedings under SMCRA. The association argued that the regulations impermissibly shift the ultimate...

The D.C. Circuit denied a petition challenging a magnesium plant's inclusion on the NPL. EPA uses a hazard ranking system (HRS) to determine whether to place a site on the NPL. Petitioners argued that EPA erred in calculating the HRS score and that if these errors were corrected, the site's ...