The Sixth Circuit held that a battery company did not waive insurance coverage in connection with a battery storage facility in New Jersey because of a settlement with its insurance company decades prior. The battery company acquired another company and discovered that several of its factories may h...

The D.C. Circuit held that EPA must continue to enforce methane emissions regulations implemented by the previous administration. In 2016, an EPA regulation required oil and gas companies to find and fix leaking methane. The measure requires companies to upgrade equipment at the sites to better capt...

The Fourth Circuit held that it does not have jurisdiction to determine whether EPA violated the CAA when the agency failed to conduct continuing evaluations of potential loss or shifts of employment before implementing regulations. In 2014, several coal companies brought suit against EPA, alleging ...

A Minnesota appeals court held that the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) erred by not obtaining a federal permit for a construction project that affected a lake's water level. Hoffman Lake and West McDonald Lake are separated by a strip of land less than 10 feet wide. In 2015, a Hoff...

A Virginia appeals court held that ash from incineration of biosolids at a wastewater treatment plant cannot be used to raise the ground level of a flood-prone agricultural field. In 2008, the Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) began using the ash to raise the ground level of flood-prone field...

A district court held that a mining company will not face CERCLA liability as a successor to another company because there was no overlap in ownership. The mining company and a lumber company purchased adjacent lots from an industrial company whose subsidiary operated a zinc and lead mine on what is...

The Second Circuit, in a summary order, affirmed a lower court decision that an insurance company has no duty to defend a plumbing company in an underlying state suit related to chemical contamination at Love Canal near Niagara Falls, New York. The allegations in the state action fall within the ins...

The Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, held that the United States is not liable under CERCLA for hazardous waste contamination at a former mine site in Idaho. A district court held the owners of the site liable for EPA's and the U.S. Forest Service's cleanup costs at the site, and the owners...

A district court held that the approval of a mining project in Montana violated NEPA, the CWA, and the National Forest Management Act. A mining company submitted a plan to the Forest Service and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to extract copper and silver from an ore vein that ...

The First Circuit struck down two Puerto Rican municipalities' ban of the disposal of coal ash at landfills within their borders. In 2015, Puerto Rico's Environmental Quality Board (EQB) approved a request from two landfills to receive coal ash from a coal-fired energy plant. Two years prior, the mu...