The Ninth Circuit affirmed, 2-1, a ruling in a lawsuit concerning the Trump Administration's use of military construction funds to build portions of a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. States and an environmental group challenged the Administration's authority to divert funds appropriated fo...

The D.C. Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court's dismissal of a conservation group's suit to block the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from constructing a border wall near the National Butterfly Center in southern Texas. The group argued that the Department's presence on ...

A district court dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction a lawsuit concerning an advisory committee on hunting chartered by DOI under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Nonprofit groups argued that the Department failed to properly charter the committee, failed to balance its membership t...

A district court held that William Perry Pendley was unlawfully serving as the acting director of BLM. The governor of Montana and the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation argued that Pendley was unlawfully serving as the acting director in violation of the Appointments Clause, t...

The Ninth Circuit vacated dismissal of a Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) lawsuit brought against the U.S. government concerning pollution from an abandoned military facility in Alaska. A resident argued that her property was contaminated by hazardous chemicals negligently released from the facility, ...

The Second Circuit vacated a final rule published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that reversed the agency's 2016 civil penalty increase for noncompliance with Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. States and environmental groups argued NHTSA erroneously conc...

The First Circuit amended a previous ruling vacating an air permit issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) for a proposed natural gas compressor station that is part of a pipeline connecting the northeastern United States and Canada. The court had found that MDEP fa...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a challenge brought by an environmental group concerning conservation of the lesser prairie chicken. The group had argued that FWS unreasonably delayed submitting to Congress a 2003 policy concerning conservation efforts when making listing decisions under the...

The Third Circuit granted a petition to review EPA's approval of Pennsylvania's proposed NAAQS for ozone. An environmental group argued the standards wrongly claimed to reduce pollution output at the state's most advanced coal-burning power plants while "simply rubberstamping an average of current p...

The Seventh Circuit reversed the denial of transmission companies' motion to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the Wisconsin Public Service Commission's approval of a $500 million electricity transmission line in southwestern Wisconsin. Environmental groups challenged the approval on constitutional...