The First Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the U.S. government in a lawsuit concerning a plan to construct a large-scale commercial offshore wind energy facility off of Martha's Vineyard. Several entities associated with the commercial fishing industry challenged the approval process, asserting...

In an unpublished opinion, the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court's order remanding to state court a lawsuit concerning a Michigan airport's use of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF). Michigan's attorney general (AG) and Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy sued in state court, argu...

A district court granted in part nonprofit and public interest groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS') 2020 rule concerning regulation of genetically engineered (GE) organisms. The groups argued the rule effectively abandoned fe...

A district court granted the Maine Department of Marine Resources' motion to dismiss a challenge to its rule that compels federally licensed lobstermen to install a tracking device on their fishing vessels. The lobstermen challenged the rule under the Maine Administrative Procedure Act (MAPA) and on...

In a per curiam opinion, a divided en banc Fifth Circuit affirmed a district court's civil penalty award of $14.25 million against an oil company in a long-running dispute concerning alleged CAA permit violations at an industrial complex in Baytown, Texas. Environmental groups had filed a CAA citize...

The Sixth Circuit vacated EPA's 2023 disapproval of a SIP proposed by Kentucky to comply with Agency changes to ozone NAAQS. Kentucky challenged the disapproval, which rested on different modeling that came out after the Agency's deadline for submitting the plan and on a lower threshold than the one...

A district court granted EPA's motion to dismiss a TSCA citizen suit brought by environmental groups concerning fluorination. The groups sought to compel EPA to prohibit the company's fluorination practices, which produced per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of carcinogenic chemicals...

A district court granted an electric transmission developer's motion for preliminary injunction against Indiana's 2023 law that granted incumbent transmission owners a right of first refusal to build transmission projects in their service areas. The developer argued the law blocked it from bidding o...

The Fifth Circuit granted EPA's motion to vacate its disapprovals of portions of regional haze SIPs submitted by Texas and Oklahoma and the issuance of federal implementation plans (FIPs) establishing a long-term strategy and/or reasonable progress goals for the states. EPA argued that because key d...

The Fifth Circuit reversed in part a district court's dismissal of a lawsuit brought by property owners against the city of Dallas and the Army Corps of Engineers concerning an ongoing floodway extension project. The owners argued the Corps' failure to prepare a supplemental EIS to account for new i...