The Ninth Circuit held that a seafood processor association may not intervene in environmental groups' lawsuit challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service's program to preserve groundfish species off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington. A lower court denied the association's m...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the denial of animal rights groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin DOI from rounding up, destroying, or auctioning off wild horses and burros in the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area on the California-Nevada border. The groups claimed that the large-scale removal of horses...

A West Virginia court overturned a city's ordinance banning the hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus shale. The city, characterizing the hydraulic fracturing process as a nuisance, argued that it has the authority to enact and enforce the ordinance pursuant to the rights given to the city by the "Home ...

A district court denied an energy company's motion to dismiss residents' tort law claims against it for damages stemming from its operation of natural gas compression stations. The residents alleged that the compressor stations cause harmful levels of noise pollution and emit large amounts of methan...

A district court vacated two internal DOI guidance documents that address and limit the use of §390 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which establishes a "rebuttable presumption" that a categorical exclusion from review under NEPA would apply to certain oil and gas development activities on federal...

The Fourth Circuit denied a petition challenging a DOE rule setting forth energy conservation standards for small electric motors. The motors covered by the rule are electric induction motors ranging in power output from 0.25 to 3 horsepower. In promulgating the rule, the DOE invoked its authori...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision certifying residents' class action lawsuit against the state wildlife agency in connection with efforts to eradicate an invasive species of fish, the northern pike, from a lake and its tributaries. The residents argued that the agency's ef...

A district court held that environmental groups lacked standing to challenge contracts a Department of Defense agency entered into to purchase fuel derived from Canadian oil sands recovered crude oil (COSRC). The groups argued that the contracts violated the Energy Independence and Security Act ...

A district court held that NOAA Fisheries' 2008/2010 biological opinion (BiOp) for the Federal Columbia River Power System is arbitrary and capricious under the ESA. In the BiOp it issued to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, NOAA Fisheries concluded that the op...