The Federal Circuit, on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' temporary deviations from the water release rates set forth in an operating plan for the Clearwater Dam that caused increased flooding in Arkansas' Dave Donaldson Black River Wildlife Management A...

A district court dismissed residents' lawsuit against a city for allowing a metals finishing plant to use and store acids and other dangerous chemicals. The residents' only factual allegation against the city is that it zoned the property at issue as a commercial or industrial use area and allowed t...

The Ninth Circuit held that the California Air Resource Board (CARB) low carbon fuel standard's regulation of ethanol does not facially discriminate against out-of-state commerce. CARB treats all ethanol within each regional category the same, and its decision to draw one of the regional categories ...

A Texas appellate court affirmed a lower court decision that commercial pecan growers suffered a regulatory taking when the Edwards Aquifer Authority—a water reclamation district—denied the growers' request for a water permit for one of their pecan orchards and granted a limited permit for a sec...

The Supreme Court of New Jersey reversed and remanded a lower court decision awarding $375,000 in damages to beachfront property owners whose oceanfront view was obstructed by a dune built to serve as a barrier from powerful storms and ocean surges. A city used its power of eminent domain to constru...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that a government's demand for property from a land use permit application must satisfy the "nexus" and "rough proportionality" requirements of Nollan v. California Coastal Comm'n, 483 U.S. 825, 17 ELR 20918 (1987), and Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 24 ELR 21083 ...

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down portions of the Los Angeles port's "Clean Truck Program," which was designed in part to reduce emissions related to port operations, including emissions from trucks. The concession agreements implementing the plan set forth a number of provisions covering, among ot...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that Oklahoma statutes that favor in-state water appropriation permit applicants over out-of-state permit applicants do not violate the Commerce Clause and are not preempted by the Red River Water Compact—an interstate water compact that allocates water among Texas, Okl...

The Seventh Circuit upheld a FERC order allowing a regional electricity transmission system to apportion costs for new power lines necessary to bring power generated from wind farms in the Great Plains to urban centers among all the utilities drawing electricity from the grid. The costs would be all...

The Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing an individual's regulatory takings claim against the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for refusing to replace a bridge he used to access portions of land he leased from the Colorado River Indian Tribes. The individual did not claim that th...