A district court held invalid an amendment to the city of Toledo's charter that gave legal rights to Lake Erie. A local family farm argued the amendment was unconstitutionally vague and thus that it should be invalidated. The court found that the environmental rights of the lake and its watershed to...

The Fourth Circuit upheld a district court order that remanded to state court the city of Baltimore's climate change case against oil companies. The city alleged it sustained climate change-related injuries, including an increase in sea levels, storms, floods, heatwaves, droughts, and extreme precip...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed as untimely Maryland's petition to review the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) approval of new flight paths to Washington National Airport. The state argued the new flight paths, which concentrated aircraft noise over its public lands, should be vacated because th...

The Tenth Circuit vacated EPA orders that granted extensions of exemptions under the CAA's renewable fuels program for three small refineries. Industry groups challenged the orders, arguing that EPA failed to honor the statutory requirement of an "extension" by confusing an extension of an exemption...

The Washington Supreme Court invalidated a rule promulgated by the state's Department of Ecology authorizing regulation via emission standards of businesses that do not directly emit greenhouse gases (GHGs), but whose products do. Industry groups and utility companies argued the Department lacked au...

The Fifth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not waived its sovereign immunity from Louisiana's lawsuit alleging that the Corps failed to maintain the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway within authorized parameters under the River and Harbor Improvements Act (RHIA). Louisiana argued that...

A district court denied public interest groups' motion for partial summary judgment in challenging an executive order that requires federal agencies to repeal two existing rules for each new rule promulgated. The groups argued they had associational standing based on injuries that two of their membe...

A district court denied EPA's request to stay a previous order requiring it to comply with its 2016 Emission Guidelines and Compliance Times for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills. Eight states had argued that the Agency failed to implement and enforce the guidelines by, among other things, failing to ...

A district court denied a neighborhood group's request to temporarily block bison hunting near Yellowstone National Park. The group argued that NPS and USDA violated NEPA when they authorized an annual bison hunt at a location on the edge of the park called Beattie Gulch, and sought a temporary rest...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's decision to modify the criteria or lower the threshold by which the Agency determined whether to grant small refineries an exemption from the CAA's Renewable Fuel Program. An industry group argued that the increase in the number of exemptions granted in 2016 and 2017 co...