The D.C. Circuit held that Alaska may not block any efforts by the United States to take tribal land into trust within Alaskan state borders. In 1971, the United States settled land claims staked by descendants of Alaskan aboriginal tribes. DOI interpreted that settlement as barring it from taking l...

The Ninth Circuit held that Washington state's management of barrier culverts, which allow streams to flow underneath roads, violated various Native American treaties from the 1850s and ordered the state to correct them. The "Stevens Treaties" were entered into in 1854-1855 between Native American t...

A district court held that West Virginia law preempts a county's ban on wastewater disposal wells. The ordinance effectively outlaws horizontal drilling anywhere in the county. It establishes a general, countywide ban on all storage of wastewater except for temporary storage of wastewater at drillin...

The Texas Supreme Court held that the common-law "accommodation doctrine," which gives an oil-and-gas lessee an implied right to use the land as reasonably necessary to produce and remove the minerals as long as it exercises that right with due regard for the landowner's rights, also extends to grou...

The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision dismissing as untimely the state's claims against a number of companies for generalized injury to state waters due to groundwater contamination from methyl tertiary butyl ether, a gasoline additive. The state's lawsuit was barred by the six-y...

The Florida Supreme Court held that the state's public utility commission exceeded its statutory rate-setting authority when it allowed an electric company to use customer money to recover costs incurred investing in a shale gas operation in Oklahoma. The company asserted that its ownership interest...

Massachusetts' highest court held that the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) failed to issue regulations setting limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as required by Massachusetts' Global Warming Solutions Act §3(d). DEP claimed it complied with its statutory mandate by establi...

New York's highest court held that material questions of fact prevent it from ruling on whether a narrow waterway within a remote area of the Adirondack Mountains is navigable-in-fact and therefore open to public use. At issue in the case is the "Mud Pond Waterway," a two-mile-long system of ponds a...

The D.C. Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, upheld an Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) decision invalidating an individual's mining claims on federal land in Oregon. DOI made those determinations so that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which was considering takings claims by the individual, ...

The Court of Federal Claims held that residents and businesses in New Orleans' Ninth Ward and the neighboring St. Bernard Parish may file class-action lawsuits against the government for flood damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. A year ago, the court ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' cons...