The Wyoming Supreme Court upheld a state-issued air quality permit authorizing a power plant's construction of a proposed coal-to-liquid facility and an associated underground coal mine. The court rejected an environmental group's claims that the permit fails to consider significant sulfur d...

A district court held that an aerospace and technology company is not entitled to insurance coverage by "operation of law" for certain environmental liabilities under CERCLA on policies issued by an insurance company to the prior owner of the contaminated site at issue. The company's operati...

A district court dismissed a CERCLA §107 claim brought by a group of real estate developers who purchased contaminated property from a manufacturing company in 1986. Prior to purchasing the property, the group hired an environmental consultant who performed a cursory environmental audit. Th...

The Fifth Circuit granted EPA's request to transfer to the D.C. Circuit Texas' petition for review of the Agency's call for revisions to the state's SIP because its prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) provisions fail to control greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases have not always bee...

A district court held that an environmental group may go forward with its CWA claim against a gas and electric company for unpermitted stormwater discharges from its service yards, but dismissed the group's RCRA claim. The company filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that its service yards do ...

A district court held that the CAA preempts a city transit employee's negligence and strict liability claims against a company for injuries stemming from diesel exhaust fumes. The employees alleged that the design of the company's buses violated the emissions standards set out in the CAA and...

The Ninth Circuit, in a case concerning the NRC's approval of a proposed interim spent fuel storage installation at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, held that the NRC's refusal to grant a nonprofit group access to sensitive information in a closed adjudicatory hearing was not arbitrary, capric...

A district court ruled in favor of the defendant in a property owners' suit seeking to recover damages, cleanup costs, and a cleanup injunction resulting from environmental contamination on their property allegedly caused by an oil company. The owners failed to prove by a preponderance of t...

The First Circuit, in a case of first impression, vacated a lower court decision that it should abstain from hearing a RCRA citizen suit concerning the cleanup of contamination caused by leaking USTs at a former gasoline filling station in Puerto Rico. The pendency of parallel state administ...

The Ninth Circuit granted citizen groups' petition for review of a final action by EPA approving in part and disapproving in part revisions to California's SIP for meeting CAA air quality standards for ozone. EPA's failure to order California to submit a revised attainment plan for the South...