The Colorado Supreme Court upheld ballot initiatives that would expand local governments' authority to enact laws regulating oil and gas development that are more restrictive than state law. The initiatives contain just one subject, and the titles fairly reflect the purpose of the initiatives and ar...

The Supreme Court of Utah dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging the state's issuance of a discharge permit for a tar sands bitumen-extraction project in the Uintah Basin. The original discharge permit was granted by the Utah Division of Water Quality (DWQ) in 2008. In 2011, the Utah...

The Supreme Court of Texas held that an oil and gas company may use a road on landowner's property to access its underground mineral rights. The company held an interest oil and gas rights under the landowners' property in addition to several adjoining tracts. In 2000, it pooled the tracts, thereby ...

The Supreme Court of Alaska upheld a ballot initiative that would require legislative approval of the any new large-scale metallic sulfide mining operation—the Pebble Mine gold and copper project—in the Bristol Bay watershed. Despite mining associations' arguments to the contrary, the "Bristol B...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that CERCLA §309 does not preempt a state's statute of repose. The case arose after property owners filed suit against a manufacturing company for alleged groundwater contamination stemming from chemicals stored on property the company sold 24 years ago. The company argu...

A New York appellate court held that the subsequent owner of property formerly used as a permitted hazardous waste treatment, storage, or disposal (TSD) facility need not provide financial assurance for the ongoing performance of corrective action on the property. Article 27 of New York's Environmen...

A district court held that an insurance company breached its duty to defend a steel company in an underlying contribution case under Montana's Comprehensive Environmental Cleanup and Responsibility Act (CERCA) stemming from the company's alleged release or threatened release of hazardous substances ...

A district court held that a conservative nonprofit group lacked standing on four of its six claims challenging Colorado's renewable energy standard (RES), which requires utilities to obtain at least 30% percent of its energy from renewable sources by the year 2020. The group claimed that three disc...

A district court held that a coal company violated the CWA and SMCRA by discharging excessive amounts of selenium into the waters of West Virginia. The company argued that the environmental group's lawsuit should be dismissed because it had already entered into a consent decree with the state enviro...

A New York appellate court reversed a lower court decision annulling a local law aimed at preventing the despoilation and destruction of wetlands and watercourses. The lower court ruled that the town enacted the law in violation of New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), but the a...