A district court granted the state of Louisiana's motion for preliminary injunction to delay the effective date of NMFS' 2019 rule requiring turtle excluder devices on certain skimmer trawl vessels operating in inshore waters. The state argued the effective date was arbitrary and capricious because ...
A district court granted interim injunctive relief for environmental groups in a lawsuit concerning the Army Corps of Engineers' operation of dams in the Willamette River Basin. The groups sought injunctive relief to remedy the Corps' substantive and procedural ESA violations previously found by the...
The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition to review EPA's final rule approving California's SIP for meeting the air quality standard for ozone in the San Joaquin Valley. An environmental group argued the SIP's contingency measure was inadequate because it provided only a nomina...
The D.C. Circuit denied a challenge to EPA's 2015 rule updating the standards under which the Agency audits wood-burning heaters' compliance with CAA emissions limits. An industry group argued the rule was invalid because, unlike the 1988 rule, it authorized testing at other labs and neither account...
The Eighth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court ruling in an ongoing enforcement suit concerning air pollution at a utility company's coal-fired power plant in Missouri. EPA argued the company violated the CAA, Missouri's SIP, and its Title V permit by performing modificati...
A Minnesota appellate court remanded a challenge to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's (MPCA's) grant of an air emissions permit for a proposed copper-nickel mine in northern Minnesota. Environmental groups argued the MPCA improperly issued the permit because the company receiving it did not i...
A district court denied a motion for preliminary injunction in a challenge to the National Park Service's (NPS') management practices for the tule elk population in an area of Point Reyes National Seashore. Plaintiffs argued the elk were dying from lack of adequate forage and water due to recent dro...
The D.C. Circuit granted in part environmental groups' petition to review EPA's 2019 rule setting annual renewable fuel volume levels under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. The groups argued that EPA's "aggregate compliance approach" for determining whether biofuel qualifies as renewable f...
A district court denied a nonprofit group's motion to preliminarily enjoin BLM from gathering wild horses inside and adjacent to the Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area. The group argued BLM's 2018 decision to gather the horses over a period of 10 years violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Bur...
The D.C. Circuit vacated in part EPA's 2019 rule lifting seasonal restrictions on the sale of higher-ethanol fuel. Petroleum industry groups challenged a specific section of the rule, in which EPA announced a new interpretation of when limits on fuel volatility under §7545(h)(4) of the CAA could be...